The South African health care system was hard hit by the second wave of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which affected nurse managers as healthcare facilities became overwhelmed due to an increased workload emanating from the overflow of admissions. Therefore, this study sought to explore and describe the nurse managers’ experiences during COVID-19 in order to identify gaps and lessons learnt. A descriptive phenomenological research approach was used to explore the experiences of ten nurse managers who were purposively selected from different units of a selected district hospital. Data was collected through telephonic unstructured individual interviews and analysed using Colaizzi’s seven steps method. The study revealed that nurse managers experienced human resource related challenges during COVID-19, worsened by the fact that vacant posts were frozen. It also emerged that there was a shortage of material resources that affected patient care. Nurse managers also indicated that COVID-19 brought a lot of administrative duties plus an additional duty of patient care. Also, nurse managers who had previously contracted COVID-19 experienced stigma and discrimination. The government needs to address resource related challenges in rural public hospitals and provide continuous support to nurse managers, particularly during a pandemic like COVID-19.
Background: Condom use is a critical component of a comprehensive and sustainable approach to the prevention of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (including HIV). Despite government making condoms freely available in the healthcare facilities in Vhembe district, there are reports of an increase in teenage pregnancies and STIs, including HIV, amongst young adults. The aim of the study was to gain an in-depth understanding of condom use promotion and reasons of condom use amongst young adults in Vhembe district, in Limpopo province.Methods: A descriptive phenomenological design was used to explore the reasons for promoting condom use amongst young adults themselves and from the perspectives of healthcare providers who are critical role players in condom education and provision. Purposive sampling was used to sample young adults and healthcare providers at three of Vhembe district’s primary healthcare facilities. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, after which thematic data analysis was used to develop themes and subthemes.Results: Two superordinate themes emerged from data analysis, namely approaches to promote condom use and reasons for condom use. Two themes emerged in respect of approaches for promotion of condom use: information sharing in the form of education, the distribution of informative material, and the adoption of a multi-sectoral approach. Self-protection emerged as a reason for condom use, to prevent disease, pregnancy and ‘u wela’, and was indicative of not trusting a sexual partner.Conclusion: To effectively promote condom use, a multidisciplinary team approach involving nurses, lay counsellors and peer educators need to be strengthened at local primary health facilities in order to facilitate the distribution of condoms and educate young adults on consistent condom use.
BACKGROUND Globally, 22 000 health workers from 52 countries have contracted Coronavirus SARS 19 since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019. Health workers are frontline service providers with an increased risk of contracting the virus due to the lengthy time they spend with patients. Nurse managers are known to be carrying administrative work further away from patients and not direct patient care. OBJECTIVE The study's main objective was to describe nurse managers' experiences during care provision at a rural hospital in the Vhembe District of South Africa. METHODS The study employed a qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis research design to obtain in-depth personal experiences from nurse managers at Vhembe district hospitals. A non-probability, purposive, judgmental sampling method was employed to recruit participants. Telephonic interviews were conducted with seven nurse managers. Data were analysed according to the interpretative phenomenological analysis method. RESULTS Four salient themes emerged from the description of nurse managers’ experiences: experiencing a high infection rate, increased risk of infection, the vicious circle of infection, and insecurities within the home. Related subthemes included the high infection rate among patients, an increased infection rate among staff, infections at home, risks in handling patients, risks of infection at home, sharing of equipment, and lack of personal protective equipment. CONCLUSIONS This study concluded that resource scarcity in hospitals undermines health workers’ efforts to provide quality care and efforts to prevent the spread of the virus among nurses and families. CLINICALTRIAL Not applicable
Introduction South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic, with 8.2 million people living with the virus. It has a high HIV prevalence of 13.7% and 230,000 new infections in 2020. It is estimated that HIV serodiscordant couples contribute up to 60% of new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa. However, there have been no specific programmes/activities to deliberately cater for couples in HIV serodiscordant relationships. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychosocial support provided for HIV serodiscordant couples both in health care settings and in the community. Methods An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) design was utilised for this study. In-depth interviews were conducted with thirteen HIV serodiscordant couples. Data collection was guided by an interview guide. All audio-recorded interview data were transcribed verbatim into written text. Data analysis was conducted using an interpretative phenomenological analysis framework. A third person-an expert in qualitative research, acted as an independent co-coder and conducted the open coding of each transcript. Findings The findings indicated that HIV serodiscordant couples received psychosocial support from their partners, family, and health care workers. This support was emotional, or in the form of counselling, reminders on taking medication, financial and household chores. The support provided by health care providers proved to be deficient and did not address the diverse needs of this group. Conclusion Psychosocial support plays a critical role in enhancing the quality of life of HIV serodiscordant couples. Therefore, client centred, and tailor-made interventions should be made available to this special with diverse needs group.
Background: Under-five mortality and morbidity could be reduced through increased implementation of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy. The aim of the study was to determine challenges facing IMCI-trained professional nurses on implementing this strategy when managing children less than 5 years of age.Methods: A quantitative descriptive survey method was used. The target populations were IMCI-trained professional nurses with the sample of 208 respondents. Data were collected through self-report questionnaires and analysed using statistical analysis system software. Results:The implementation of the IMCI strategy by IMCI-trained professional nurses in Vhembe primary health care (PHC) clinics continues to face challenges, making it difficult for professional nurses to follow guidelines. These challenges range from staff barriers, management barriers, poor management process and poor infrastructure. All these challenges lead to poor-quality under-five patient care. Conclusion:Regardless of the IMCI strategy being implemented since its inception in 1999, the under-five mortality remains not reduced. This is related to the identified challenges facing the IMCI-trained professional nurses implementing the strategy.
The emergence of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) required the sudden closing of educational institutions to save lives. Universities had to adopt and adapt to new teaching strategies to ensure that no learner was left behind. The purpose of this study is to describe the challenges experienced by university lecturers teaching health courses in adopting online teaching strategies. The objective of the study is to explore challenges experienced by university health course lecturers in a university from South Africa in managing online teaching platforms and the strategies employed by them to enhance online teaching. The study adopted a qualitative interpretative phenomenological approach engaging six purposefully sampled lecturers teaching health courses in a historically disadvantaged university in South Africa. Data were obtained through online methods such as blackboard meetings, in addition to face-to-face and telephone interviews. Preliminary findings revealed both positive and negative experiences in offering health courses online. Positive experiences included flexible time management, fuel-saving, and multi-tasking. Negative experiences included challenges such as lack of experience in designing online content, lack of knowledge to create a conducive teaching environment, students’ incapacity to engage in learning tools, poor lecturer-student interaction, and difficulty integrating theory into practice. So far, it has been concluded that a sudden shift to online teaching needs to consider the skill-level of lecturers, learners, and the courses offered. A one size fits all approach may not be an option.
Background: Serodiscordant refers to a couple where one has human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and the other partner is HIV negative. HIV-serodiscordancy often results in diverse psychological and emotional challenges. Evidence demonstrates that the dynamics of living in an HIV-serodiscordant relationship are often stressful. This study explored the psychosocial- and disclosure-related challenges faced by couples in HIV-serodiscordant relationships in South Africa. Methods: An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) design was followed. A total of 13 HIV-serodiscordant partners were purposively sampled. Data were collected through individual face-to-face interviews and analysed using the IPA framework. Results: The findings indicated that HIV-serodiscordant couples experienced diverse psychosocial challenges such as shock, sadness, hurt, denial and disbelief. Participants also experienced challenges such as selective disclosure and fear of further disclosure. Conclusions: The findings have implications for public health and are critical in programming and designing couple-based HIV care interventions. Couples in HIV-serodiscordant relationships would benefit more from differentiated, client-centred psychosocial support. To contribute to the HIV epidemic control and reduction of new HIV infections, specific interventions such as couples counselling, disclosure counselling, support groups, health education and safer conception risk reduction strategies need to be implemented.
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