[Counseling in the prevention of fatigue in psychiatric nurses]

Nursing is a stressful activity and therefore it is necessary for nurses to develop effective coping mechanisms, or to strengthen existing ones in a healthy manner, in order to be capable of dealing with stress, arising from their personal and professional lives. It is, however, not solely stress itself which predisposes nurses to fatigue (physical, psychological and emotional exhaustion) but rather the chronic nature and excessive amount of stressors which place excessive demands on the energy resources and coping, mechanisms of nurses resulting in the ineffective handling of stress which in turn leads to the eventual development of fatigue. The detrimental results of this experience are, however, not confined to the nurse herself, but extends further to the patient and the organization. Thus, if fatigue is not controlled or dealt with, all parties and organizations concerned could suffer. This research covers the accompaniment function of the psychiatric nurse specialist in the prevention of fatigue in psychiatric nurses by strengthening their mental preparedness. As a possible solution to the experience of fatigue, a structured, accompanied program of three days was offered to a group of psychiatric nurses. The Solomon four group design was followed in order to eliminate influences on the subjects resulting from the completion of the self-evaluation scale as pre-test. The data which was obtained from the test results was statistically compared. Results showed that there was a definite decrease in the levels of fatigue experienced by the experimental group that received the structured accompanied programme, but no real change occurred in the control group that had merely been provided with relevant literature.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)