| dc.description.abstract | The Wellness Leadership White Paper states that leadership is needed in a supportive environment with the purpose of guiding clients to lasting wellness. Wellness can be defined as an active process that enables an individual to become aware of all aspects of the self and to make choices in terms of a more healthy existence by means of balancing and integrating various life dimensions. Health care professionals are leaders who play an important role in creating an environment that contributes to wellness. Their leadership is, therefore, viewed as
a wellness strategy. Leadership has been identified as an essential role of health care professionals with a responsibility to attend to the needs of their clients, such as youth victims of violence, with the aim of leading them towards wellness. The Provincial Nursing Strategy of the Western Cape in South Africa emphasises the need for health care professionals to demonstrate their leadership capacity in practice. In the communities of the Western Cape Province of South Africa, many youth victims of violence report for treatment at the health care facilities; it places a high burden on the health care system. Even though health care professionals provide treatment to this group of youth, it is not clear how health care professionals lead them towards wellness after an incidence of violence. The purpose of this study was to develop a conceptual framework that can be implemented by health care professionals to gain a better understanding about the important role they play in leading youth victims of violence towards wellness in a rural community in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. This research study applied a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual design. The study population who were selected by means of a purposive sampling technique consisted of youth attending a high school and who had been victims of violence and of health care professionals (professional nurses, medical doctors and social workers) working at the health care facilities in the community where the study was conducted. The study was conducted in four phases. Phase 1 of the study focused on the exploration and description of the expectations of the youth victims of violence about how health care professionals should lead them towards wellness. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted at a high school at the study site. Phase 2 explored and described the experiences of health care professionals
who were supporting youth victims of violence at the health care facilities in the community of study. The execution of this phase comprised of unstructured individual interviews. The total number of the FGDs and unstructured individual interviews conducted in this study was determined by data saturation. Data analysis of the data collected involved transcription of the voice recordings of the all the interviews and writing up of field notes. The steps of Tesch’s coding technique were used at the end of Phases 1 and 2. To ensure trustworthiness
of the collected data, Guba and Lincoln’s strategies of credibility, transferability,
dependability, confirmability and authenticity were applied. Phase 3 of this study entailed the development of a conceptual framework for health care professionals to lead youth victims of violence towards wellness. It was based on the findings from Phases 1 and 2 of the study; Phase 4 of the study involved peer debriefing and validation of the developed conceptual framework. In Phase 1 of the study, a total of nine (n = 9) FGDs were conducted among fifty eight (n = 58) youth participants between the ages of 15 and 19 years. Each group consisted of 6 to 8
participants and the interviews did not last more than an hour per session. The data analysis in this phase showed that the youth victims of violence did have expectations from the health care professionals in guiding them towards wellness. They shared their interpretation of the term wellness and were also quite aware of the challenges in their community. Four categories emerged from the data in Phase 1: Category 1 - Dimensions of wellness as it related to healthy body, mind, spirit and positive interactions: The findings of this category revealed that youth participants described wellness as a holistic concept that comprised healthy living, self-care and a healthy personality and mind (emotional, psychological) as well as spiritual well-being. They did not necessarily consider wellness as the absence of sickness or illness, Category 2 - Common problems among youth in the context of the community: They articulated that drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and violent behaviour were important issues of concern to them in their community. Category 3 – Building a sound and trusting relationship: They expressed their need for health
care professionals to have a positive attitude towards them, to be respectful and to provide them with accurate information, as well as confidential and supportive services. Category 4 - Guidance of youth to wellness: The youth also proposed strategies that they believe could be used by the health care professionals while guiding them towards wellness. These strategies were: Provision of information / health education, school and community outreach programmes, provision of counselling services and role modelling. For the second phase, seven (n = 7) health care professionals were interviewed. Two (n = 2) were professional nurses, three (n = 3) medical doctors and two (n = 2) social workers. The findings of the individual interviews indicated that the health care professionals recognised the fact that wellness is very important. However, they felt that guiding youth victims of
violence toward wellness was a challenging process. Three categories emerged from the data in Phase 2: Category 1 - Different points of view about the concept of wellness: The health care professionals described wellness as the holistic wellbeing of a person, an absence of illness or disease and living a healthy lifestyle.
Category 2 - Barriers to leading youth victims of violence towards wellness: The health care professionals reported challenges while attempting to lead youth victims of violence towards wellness which included low socioeconomic status of families, unsupervised youth, violent behaviour, drug and substance abuse, a lack of resources in the community, negative staff attitudes, inadequate physical infrastructure and human resources as well as the absence of a process of guiding youth victims to wellness. Category 3 - Guidance to leading youth victims to wellness: The health care workers proposed strategies for guiding youth victims towards wellness. Those strategies included the provision of support in the form of counselling services, use of support groups, family and community support; recreational activities, dedicated staff to work with youth victims of violence and a multidisciplinary team approach. The findings from the first two phases were triangulated during the third phase of this study with the purpose of developing a conceptual framework. The survey list of Dickoff, James and Wiedenbach formed the foundation of the reasoning map for the development of the framework. The unique contribution of this study is the development of an original, participative
leadership framework that provides health care professionals with information for leading youth victims of violence towards wellness in a rural community in the Western Cape. This study was conducted in a single rural community of the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Despite this limitation, the framework could be evaluated for use in similar settings. Finally, guidelines to implement the framework and recommendations for improving community health care practice, nursing education and nursing research were suggested based on the findings from the study. | en_US |
