A pilot study to explore mental health psychosocial rehabilitation beliefs, goals and practices of registered nurses working in primary health care clinics within the eThekwini district.

Abstract

Aim: To describe psychosocial rehabilitation beliefs, goals and practices of registered nurses’ working in Primary Health Care clinics in the eThekwini District. Methodology This study was based on an interpretavist approach using a quantitative cross sectional survey. The population included all registered nurses working for at least three months at any of the PHC clinics where treatment to MHCUs was provided.. The Psychiatric Rehabilitation Beliefs, Goals, and Practices (PRBGP) scale was used to collect data from participants. Descriptive statistics were requested using SPSS version 18. Non-parametric tests were employed for analysis of associations between the scale scores and the demographic variables; and inter-correlations between factor scores. Results The sample consisted of 41 participants. The age group 22-29 years and nurses with a Diploma had the majority of contacts with MHCUs.. All nurses who had PSR training had contact with MHCUs. Nurses who had SANC Psychiatric Nurse registrations or PSR training were significantly more likely to have contact with MHCUs. Most participants did not favour consumer directed agendas and lacked flexibility when dealing with the unique needs of MHCUs.. There were disagreements between the claims of nurses’ consumer driven approach and allowing MHCUs’ needs to actually direct the process including personalizing the services; and between claims that nurses used PSR evidence and the actual process of allowing consumers’ needs to direct this process. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the PRBGP scale was .81. Conclusion and Recommendations Nurses working in PHC have the potential to adopt a PSR approach and they are able to articulate PSR beliefs, goals and practices but were unable to translate this into their actual practice settings. Future research should; differentiate between the ideological stance of nurses and their actual beliefs, determine the support for PSR from both organizational structures and colleagues, determine the actual content of PSR programmes in South Africa ,determine whether the age of nurses independent of PSR training or SANC psychiatric registration influences the attitude of nurses towards MHCUs and finally whether advanced nurses have a more positive attitude towards MHCUs ..