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Nursing Education 2018 Journal of Nursing and Health Studies
ISSN: 2574-2825 Page 26
April 23-25, 2018
Rome, Italy
27th Edition of World Congress on
Nursing Education &
Research
Background : Nurses appear to be disengaged from their work
and workplace cultures. A three-year emancipatory practice
development research project was done in 11 critical care
units in Gauteng, a province in South Africa supported the
statement. Existing workplace cultures in five public and six
private critical care units were observed for a total of 230 hours.
Communication was identified as one of the key challenges
that affected teamwork negatively.
Aim: To share how communication challenges were
collaboratively addressed to improve teamwork in one public
critical care unit.
Methods: Using a qualitative approach, all nurses working
in one critical care unit in a public hospital were purposively
sampled. Five caring conversations were held (including six to
nine participants per session) in the unit over a period of two
months. Collaborative data analysis and consensus were used
to identify communication challenges and co-construct a way
forward to improve teamwork.
Results: Consensus was reached that through verbal and
non-verbal communication nurses displayed ‘unacceptable
behaviour’ which negatively affected teamwork in the critical
care unit. The ‘unacceptable behaviour’ characteristics were
outlined and then linked to the animals e.g. the crocodile.
Photos of the animal were displayed in the tearoom to raise
awareness of unacceptable behaviour that will not be tolerated
in the unit. The actions improved the overall behaviour as well
as teamwork in the unit.
Conclusion: Nurses should be able to be open and speak
about challenges relating to workplace culture experienced in
practice. Setting ground rules such as being non-judgemental
provides a psychological safe space to talk freely about
feelings and co-construct action plans to move towards
positive workplace cultures. The nurses voiced that we should
remember that ‘Lions do not eat grass’.
Biography
Prof T Heyns is a senior lecturer at University of Pretoria for past 19 years
involved in the education and training of pre-graduate and post-graduate
students. Her area of clinical expertise is Emergemcy Nursing Care. She
has supervised post-graduate scholars to completion a total of 41 Masters
and 3 PhD students.. Currently she is supervising 11 Masters and 10 PhD
students. She is an external examiner at several national and international
universities, has examined 25 Masters dissertations and 9 PhD thesis. She
has presented at various National and International Conferences relating
Trauma and Emergency care as well as Practice development in the Critical
Care environment. She has 20 published article in National and International
Journals and is a lead researcher in an International Practice development
research project with NRF Funding. She is a Fellow of the Academia of Nurs-
ing in South Africa (FANSA), as well as the past president of the Emergency
Nursing Society of South Africa.
Lions don’t eat grass…Addressing communication in critical
care to enhance teamwork
Tanya Heyns and Isabel Coetzee
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Tanya Heyns et al., J Nurs Health Stud 2018, Volume 3
DOI: 10.21767/2574-2825-C1-002