Community psychiatric nurses work in extremely stressful environments with intense patient\nrelationships as they try to prevent self-harm and manage aggressive behaviors. In order to improve their ability to\nmanage the stressful work environments, community psychiatric nurses need to incorporate formal coping strategies\ninto their daily work routines. With evidence-based coping strategies, community psychiatric nurses can effectively\nmanage the stressful situations in their work environment to increase their work longevity. The purpose of this study\nwas to explore the individual coping strategies currently used by community psychiatric nurses in practice in order to\ndevelop an intervention strategy for future implementation.\nMethods: This was an exploratory qualitative study using an interpretative approach. A purposive sampling method\nwas used to identify participants from the community psychiatric nurses in a region of Ghana. Participants were\nrecruited and interviewed, guided by semi-structured questions, until saturation was reached. The interviews were\naudio-taped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically.\nResults: A total of 13 participants, 10 women and 3 men ages 26 to 60 years, were interviewed for this study. From the\ninductive analysis, four coping themes emerged from the data including: 1) self-disguise, 2) reliance on religious faith,\n3) self-motivation, and 4) reduction in the number of home visits. The participants described their work environment as\nstressful, almost to the point of overwhelming. In this regard, they identified the individual coping strategies as critical\ndaily practices for self care to manage their high stress levels.\nConclusion: Individual coping strategies are often used by community psychiatric nurses in daily practice. The\nparticipants identified personal coping strategies as critical interventions to manage stress and to decrease their risk for\nburnout. However, community psychiatric nurses must develop.\npersonal-mastery in various coping strategies to care for themselves, as well as motivate them despite the challenging\nworking environment. The individual coping strategies adopted by community psychiatric nurses was not only helped\nthem deliver care, but also protected their clients so people would not label them as â??mental patients.â?? Collectively, the\nfour strategies reported in this study need to be developed into a cohesive and comprehensive intervention.
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