[Service experience of community psychiatric nurses: 1]

Since psychiatric community services were legalised by the promulgation of the Mental Health Act no 18 of 1973 shift to primary mental Health Care has occurred. This change resulted in an increase in psychiatric patients within the community, and because of this increase the workload of the psychiatric community nurse became heavier. This higher expectation might cause pressure for the psychiatric community nurse and therefore influence her therapeutic relationship with her patient negatively. It was therefore important that the work experience of the psychiatric community nurse should be explored and described in order to formulate guidelines to mobilise resources to promote, maintain and restore the mental health of the psychiatric community nurse. A exploratory, descriptive contextual study was done with the aim of achieving insight into the internal environment experiences of the psychiatric community nurse working in the psychiatric community. In depth exploration was achieved by way of the phenomological method of interviewing to obtain data.