Strategies to promote safety of staff members in a selected Forenscic Psychiatric Ward, Limpopo Province

Abstract

Background: Staff members in Forensic Psychiatric Wards (FPW) around the world are faced with serious risk of physical injuries, psychological and emotional harm inflicted by Mental Health Care Users (MHCU) during their call of duty. The risk of working in these units are experienced on daily basis to an extent that even death can occur. Efforts have been implemented to minimize these risks, but violence continue to occur. In developed countries, body worn cameras have been used but this did not reduce the occurrences of incidences. Staff members of different categories remain unsafe in the FPW. Objectives: To develop strategies to promote safety of staff members in a selected Forensic Psychiatric ward in Limpopo Province. Method: The study was conducted in the selected FPW of a specialized hospital. An explorative, descriptive, and contextual design was employed in a qualitative manner. The study was conducted in two phases. Phase one of the study consisted of exploration of the experiences of staff members regarding their safety and the kind of security measures that can be developed to promote their safety. In phase two the strategies were developed and validated. Data collection: The data collection process was piloted using two staff members who met the inclusion requirement but were not part of the study. Techs’ eight steps of analysis were applied as the data analysis method. Results: Seven main themes emerged from the analyzed data that is: MHCUs are aggressive, MHCUs’ behavior, environmental factors, effective teamwork, criminal history of patients, insufficient resources and support needed by staff members. Conclusion: More studies can be conducted in future to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the developed strategies from this study. Ethics approval was granted by the Higher Degrees Committee of the University of Venda.