The practice environment plays an important role in nursing. Currently, limited information seems to exist on the nature of practice environments within the primary health care (PHC) context of the public health care sector of South Africa. This study describes the demographic profile of community health care centres (CHCs) and professional nurses (PNs) as well as the current status of the practice environment of nurses in the PHC context. A quantitative, descriptive cross-sectional survey design was used. Firstly, demographic data of the CHCs (N=41; n=26) was obtained. Secondly, PNs (N=291; n=195) were surveyed using the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) and questions focussing on their demographic profile. The demographic profile of CHCs and PNs was described and the confirmatory analysis of the PES-NWI showed that the survey was valid in the PHC context of South Africa. Rabie, Coetzee and KlopperThe nature of community health care centreThe Cronbach alpha ranged between 0.68 and 0.86. Nurses disagreed that the sub-scales named staffing and resource adequacy and nurse participation in PHC/CHC affairs were present in their practice environments. Development and implementation of a positive practice environment programme for the South African PHC context could improve the wellbeing of nurses and assist in the delivery of quality care to patients.

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CHAPTER 1 nurses. The nursing profession should educate society through the media on the effects of negatively stereotyping male nurses in the nursing profession. Contribution/value-add: There is limited research done within the nursing profession regarding occupational gender-role stereotypes especially from a South African perspective, and therefore a contribution to South African literature is being made. The research study elicits and arouses a thinking process among individuals to become aware of their stereotypes and the damaging effects on male nurses.

In a primary health care setting, it is important to train, appoint, and support managers who in turn will be able to train and support their personnel. Furthermore, reciprocal community involvement must be encouraged between personnel of the community health centre and stakeholders in the community to improve the health status of the community. Finally, group cohesions between all health care workers and managers at different organisational levels should be encouraged, as this enhances teamwork and a culture of teaching-learning and improves the competence of all staff.

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