Nursing leaders in South Africa play a pivotal role in shaping healthcare outcomes, yet their psychological and mental well-being often remains overlooked. This neglect contributes to burnout, reduced effectiveness and compromised patient care. This perspective article argues for the urgent integration of psychological and mental well-being competencies into leadership development, grounded in the newly developed Nursing Leadership Competency Framework by the national Department of Health. Drawing on the framework as a guiding reference, the article highlights the strategic importance of resilience, stress management and emotional intelligence as leadership competencies. It further situates these within broader national and global priorities, including the National Development Plan 2030, Agenda 2063 of the African Union and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Strategic recommendations emphasise structured interventions, formal support systems, policy advocacy and research. The article concludes with a call for expanded research and scholarly engagement to sustain momentum in advancing nurse leaders’ psychological well-being.
Tertiary students frequently report mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression and burnout. Sexual and gender minority (SGM) students enrolled in healthcare-related programmes face additional stressors, including stigma, discrimination, identity concealment and social isolation. Transgender and non-binary students, in particular, report heightened distress, often due to institutional and peer-level discrimination. Despite growing societal awareness, SGM students continue to experience marginalisation and high emotional distress. These negative psychosocial experiences can impair mental health, hinder interpersonal relationships and limit academic achievement in high-pressure environments. SGM youth are also at greater risk of homelessness, substance misuse and academic failure due to a lack of familial and institutional support. Student counselling services are integral to promoting psychological well-being, offering psychotherapy, crisis intervention and referrals. However, many SGM students encounter barriers such as heteronormative assumptions, stigma and untrained staff, which diminish the efficacy of these services. Early access to inclusive mental healthcare can mitigate the long-term impact of psychological distress.
Despite two decades of legal prohibition, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) remains entrenched in several Kenyan highland counties and is increasingly recognised as a public mental health issue, not merely a surgical event. Lived experience interviews with 39 adult women in Tharaka-Nithi County (2020) documented the practice’s psychological sequelae. Inductive coding isolated four intersecting impact areas: (1) traumatic recall, reported by 33 participants as flashbacks, nightmares, or sensory intrusions tied to the cutting event; (2) depressive withdrawal, described by 31 as chronic sadness, reduced self-worth, and social disengagement; (3) persistent anxiety, with 29 expressing anticipatory fear around childbirth, medical examinations, or community scrutiny; and (4) stigma-driven social limitation, where 28 cited diminished mobility, economic loss, or reluctance to seek care following disclosure. Only five women regarded the ritual as culturally affirming; most narrated ongoing tension between public belonging and private distress. Three service priorities emerged: (a) embed a brief trauma screen and referral protocol into all reproductive health visits; (b) equip sub-county facilities with trained female psychological counsellors able to coordinate counselling across departments; and (c) centre prevention messaging in survivor-led chama [a Swahili word, meaning society or organisation] forums and elder declarations, rather than relying on abstract clinical warnings. Women’s testimonies advance psychological understanding of FGM/C and offer practical, rights-based entry points for service design in Kenya and comparable high-prevalence settings.
This article explores the correlation between primary caregiver burden and anxiety in breast cancer patients; in order to increase the social attention to the mental health of this group and improve their quality of life. Using the convenience sampling method, general data, the caregiver burden scale (ZBI) and the anxiety scale (SAS), 207 breast cancer patients admitted to a grade A hospital from September 2023 to October 2023 were sampled. The primary caregiver care burden score was 51.08±14.65 and the anxiety score was (57.62±12.12. The Spearman Correlation analysis indicated a positive association between primary caregiver care burden and anxiety (=0.764, <0.001), with a positive correlation between individual burden and primary caregiver anxiety (=0.759,<0.001) and a positive association between responsibility burden and primary caregiver anxiety (=0.675,<0.001). Regression analysis showed that primary caregiver care burden and dimensional individual burden in breast cancer patients compared with the general information education, work status mainly affected the anxiety level of the primary caregivers of breast cancer patients (=0.652, <0.001). This study concluded from relevant survey analysis that the heavier the caregiving burden of the main caregivers of breast cancer patients, the heavier the anxiety. The society needs to pay attention to the mental health of the main caregivers of breast cancer. When necessary, certain measures can be taken to help this group to reduce the care burden of the main caregivers and relieve anxiety, in order to improve the quality of life of this group.
