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‘We have to be Satisfied with the Scraps’: South African Nurses' Experiences of Care on Adult Psychiatric Intellectual Disability Inpatient Wards
Author(s) -
Capri Charlotte,
Buckle Chanellé
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1468-3148
pISSN - 1360-2322
DOI - 10.1111/jar.12118
Subject(s) - redress , thematic analysis , nursing , burnout , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , intellectual disability , psychology , negotiation , narrative , coping (psychology) , care work , work (physics) , medicine , psychiatry , qualitative research , social psychology , political science , clinical psychology , sociology , social science , linguistics , philosophy , mechanical engineering , law , engineering
Background Migrating nursing labour inadvertently reinforces South Africa's care drain, contributes to a global care crisis and forces us to reconsider migration motivation. This paper highlights issues that complicate psychiatric intellectual disability nursing care and identifies loci for change in an attempt to redress this care challenge. Method An exploratory descriptive‐interpretivist method investigated nurses' experiences of psychiatric intellectual disability work. Sixteen free association narrative interviews were collected in 2013. Thematic analysis allowed findings to emerge from the data. Results Findings reflect a number of themes: ‘relational interaction’, ‘care burden’, ‘system fatigue’, ‘infantilising dynamic of care’ and ‘resources for coping’ . Conclusion System fatigue contributes more to negative experiences of providing care than direct patient work, and nurses experience more relational reciprocity from patients than from institutional management. Organizations should meet nurses’ needs for burnout prevention, afford them impact in implementing institutional controls, and engage in a non‐exploitative and non‐exclusionary way.