The public image of nursing: a profession to learn about

Nursing is a profession that has suffered from public stereotyping for a long time. It has been viewed historically as a female profession, under the orders of doctors and without its own field of competence. Major changes have occurred in the discipline over the last decade that directly affect the profession. As a result, this review of the literature has tried to identify the image of nursing held by the population, the prevailing stereotypes related to it, and what the public considers that nurses do. Eight categories emerged from the thematic analysis that can help in explaining the view that society has of nursing and the evolution it has undergone. It seems that the public is predominantly ignorant of the essence and focus of the discipline, which is none other than care of the person, family or community. It is also a little known profession as society does not fully acknowledge that nurses have their own field of competence, autonomy and independence. There is still a tendency to consider nursing as a profession inferior to medicine, closely related to "tasks", and there is trust in its carrying out those activities that have been traditionally associated with it. However, it is coming to be perceived as a profession that is less related to femininity and that involves greater preparation than in the past.     

Is nursing a profession? Results of a Missouri study.

This article examines the question of whether or not nursing is or should be a profession. The conclusion is based primarily on an analysis of what constitutes a profession and an empirical study of some nursing practices and attitudes. The analysis of professions recognizes three prominent models in sociology: trait, functional, and power or control. It bypasses these in favor of a "cluster concept," which asserts that the public has a number of expectations of an occupation before it will bestow the status of profession upon it. We then give an analysis of some of the results of the survey of a sample of Missouri registered nurses. The gist of the data is said to reflect the facts that these nurses think nursing is or should be a profession, but that other factors tend to show that nursing lacks the requisite cluster to substantiate the claim to be a profession. We conclude that nursing should perhaps not be a profession since it has been a bastion of the "ethics of compassion" in a world that is increasingly beset by an "ethics of competence."     

Occupational health nursing in Canada: its social foundation and future.

Our purpose in examining the social foundation of occupational health nursing is to better determine the future direction of the profession and its impact on a diverse workforce. Part of what makes up the profession of occupational health nursing is found in its definition: a process that is determined by the interaction between the occupational health nurse, worker, work and workplace; its goal is to assist the worker to achieve his or her optimal level of functioning, primarily through health education, health promotion, prevention of disease and injury and crisis intervention. Much of occupational health nursing is also based on its history and the traditions that have been established. A true understanding, then, of what occupational health nursing's future can be comes from a solid understanding of the history of the profession. As social trends in the past affected the profession, so will they in the future.     

Staff meetings as a fundamental element in work organization

The present study was developed as part of the Integrated Research Project "New Forms of Health Work Organization: emphasis on nursing work", carried out at the University Hospital of the Rio Grande Federal University. A series of studies were carried out with the objective of identifying the occurrence, content, periodicity and vision of nursing personnel about staff meetings in order to understand the importance of holding periodic meetings. Interviews were carried out with 21 nursing professionals. Data analysis revealed two main categories: differences in vision about staff meetings among nursing personnel and dichotomy between what theory dictates and what truly happens in staff meetings.     

Nurse's craft: an analysis and some future perspectives

This text, while considering nursing as a profession, makes evident, initially, a perspective to develop it: the one that proves that we are capable to transform at least the world of health which we live in. In order to do this I propose myself to know it as e world of work and of health practices which has been, as I debate, historically determined. Such practices, according to their evolution, are configured in capitalism as a service, what gives to it a special characteristic in this production process. The profession of nursing while a participant of the collective work develops, however, its own original task, which has been being defined within this context, based on its own work processes--of care taking, educating, managing, which, keeping in mind its economic, political and symbolic properties discussed in this paper, will be able to open the necessary fissures for the daily action of a project takes uses as a reference the interest of the health service user, represented by his health needs.     

Nurses' intent to leave the profession: issues related to gender, ethnicity, and educational level

BACKGROUND: The increase in demand for registered nurses will exceed supply by 29% by 2020, which is due in part to difficulties in retaining the existing nursing workforce. The researchers postulated that nursing professionals are experiencing a higher level of job dissatisfiers than motivators, and this is causing a high percentage of nurses to consider leaving the profession. Prior research has found that nurses' dissatisfaction with their working environments is a predictor of their intent to leave their professions; however, few have addressed the demographic characteristics of the population as predictors of this intent. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore issues relating to the retention of the existing nursing workforce. This article describes the results of a research study that was designed to identify and evaluate the variables that contribute to nurses' intent to leave their profession and the relationships of gender, ethnicity, and educational levels to this intent. METHODOLOGY: Data were collected from 284 nurses, of which 46% indicated that they were considering leaving their profession. Using multiple regression analysis, the researchers were able to test whether certain groups (according to gender, ethnicity, and education levels) had a greater intent to leave the profession and what factors were related to each subgroups' intent to leave. FINDINGS: The results of this study revealed that (a) nurses who are male, are White-non-Hispanic, or have less than a master's degree are more inclined to consider leaving the nursing profession, and (b) benefits were a more important consideration to male and White-non-Hispanic nurses regarding their intent to leave the nursing profession. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: In today's environment of low reimbursement and high cost containment, health care managers need to focus on those items that will have the greatest impact on retaining high-quality nurses because nurses "make the critical, cost-effective difference in providing safe, high-quality patient care."     

Der Pflegeberuf im Spiegel der Öffentlichkeit

The following article represents the main results of studies in Germany treating the situation of nurses in hospitals and in long term care units focussing the image of nursing work—on the one hand from the public’s and on the other hand from the nurses’ perspectives. The article enters into the question what the general public and the nurses thinks about the nursing work, the nursing work conditions and trust in professional caring. As a result, it can be stated that the rating of nursing work and nursing work conditions in public differs. Nursing work is higher rated in public than the nursing work conditions and the quality of professional caring. In the nursing community a high identification with the nursing profession and nursing work can be determined. But there is lower job satisfaction and esteem for nursing work visible.     

Israeli registered nurse workforce

ABSTRACT: This commentary on the article by Nirel, Riba, Reicher and Toren, "Registered nurses in Israel - workforce employment characteristics and projected supply", describes major findings from this important Israeli study and links findings to other nursing workforce studies worldwide. Israeli projections include a 25% decrease in RNs in the workforce by 2028; the greater likelihood of leaving the progression of young nurses compared to older nurses, and the greater likelihood of leaving the profession by those nurses with no advanced training. Suggestions are made for future workforce analysis to triangulate economic analysis and policy planning, work design, and workforce management; for policy and planning and budget allocation at the macro level to go hand-in-hand with work design and management strategies at the micro level; and for the development of a national nursing workforce plan for investment and reform with a timeline and specific dates for accomplishing separate goals for recruitment and retention.This is a commentary on http://www.ijhpr.org/content/1/1/11/.     

Receptiveness and changes in the nursing work process in healthcare units in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

This article describes changes in the nursing work process resulting from implementation of the process referred to as "receptiveness", following introduction of the Paidéia Family Health Program in health care units in Campinas, S?o Paulo, Brazil, since 2001. Data were collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews to examine the nursing work process, specifically in relation to "receptiveness". The analysis was based on two possible definitions of "receptiveness": as an attitude towards users and their needs, and as a device for reorganizing the work process. The study also analyzes "receptiveness" in relation to: organization of the work process, guarantee of accessibility, expanded demands on the health service and health team, changes in the nursing work process, humanization, and bonding.     

About the theoretic, philosophical, epistemological bases of scientific research: the case of nursing

As indicated by the title, this paper discusses the theoretic, philosophical, epistemological basis of scientific research--the case of nursing. The author points out the fundamental questions in nursing--science and art. Nursing is considered both as a social practice and as a profession that encompasses scientific practice and the construction of knowledge. Thus, Nursing is understood as a "science under construction" or as specific knowledge, even if it is imprecise and, therefore, on its way to become scientific due to its evidences. In other words, knowledge that is justified not by total precision, on the contrary, by the need to find answers to the question about raising the epistemological reach of nursing research results--its knowing and knowing what to do. The discussion emphasizes the crucial nature of nursing care.     

Understanding the identity of the nurse: situating the subject in the scientific production of nursing

This is a reflection on the construction process of nursing professional identity. The main objective was to position the subject in nursing scientific production, identifying some guidelines of interpretation about this identity construction and their determinants, as follows: the knowledge, the profession, the identity perception, the history, the art and ethics, the gender, the identity, the job and the work force. The understandings contained in the article may contribute to the construction of the conceptual reference for studies about Identity. It presents the principle that this identity is essentially constructed through daily work.     

The teaching of biosafety in undergraduate nursing: a literature review

It's a study that made a scientific production survey in nursing regarding to biosafety teaching aiming to investigate its context and discover the content of publishing on biosafety teaching in the nursing undergraduation. It was analyzed the journal articles found consulting LILACS, SciELO, MEDLINE, BDENF, DEDALUS and PERIENF databases, identifying 26 articles. The results found provided the creation and discussion of these categories: "Ideological and theoretical bases", "Historic approach of biosafety", "Occupational risks and AIDS" and "Biosafety education in graduation". It was concluded that the number of articles is small, mainly the ones focusing on biosafety teaching, but there was an evolution of this content in the last years.     

The pace of change. New roles and challenges redefine the nursing profession

The speed at which a profession is changing can be gauged by the number of new roles its members play. By this measure, nursing has undergone a revolution over the past decade. Although nurses continue to devote much of their time to direct patient care, most of them also have roles as care planners, managers, educators, and even counselors. In many cases, moreover, nurses today do work and address problems that few would have identified as part of "nursing" 10 years ago. This photo essay presents three examples of nontraditional roles in nursing.     

Expanding the Role of the Nurse: Nurse Practitioners and Case Managers

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the impact of health trends on the structure of nursing organisations and the function and education of the professional nurse. It is argued that these changes are promoting a demand for autonomous nursing practice in the form of nurse practitioners and nurse case managers. The challenge to the profession is viewed in terms of making current health policies work for the achievement of professional goals, rather than against them.     

Coping with unbalanced information about decision-making influence for nurses

The leaders of the nursing profession are trying to change nursing so that nurses will be better able to practice their profession the way it is taught in nursing schools--in a manner that will afford them the job satisfaction, power, and prestige that will attract more of the best people into nursing. Part of what is encouraging these changes is a literature that calls for increased decision making power for nurses, power that often takes the form of increased decentralized, participative, or autonomous decision making. A problem with this literature is that a sizable portion of it is unbalanced in its support of nurse influence and in its opposition to hospital bureaucracy. This article illustrates and discusses this imbalance and considers what hospital administrators might do to cope with its consequences.     

Nursing ethics and new challenges

The nursing profession has always placed great importance on the ethical requirements linked to its activities. However, the understanding and content to these activities has evolved over the course of history. Two approaches have been developed as the principal issues of nursing ethics: the ethics of virtue and the ethics of principles. The first approach enquires into the attitudes that must be held by a person in order to act as a good nurse. The second follows an inverse course and considers the actions and principles that must be respected in order to be a good professional. An approach that harmonises both perspectives must pose the following questions: What do we understand by nursing care? On what ethical principles is this form of understanding care based? What moral attitudes are related to caring correctly? In a modern professional model, the definition and exercise of care necessarily include consideration of team work. Similarly, carrying out a good caring function, that is to say quality nursing, requires apprenticeship on the one hand, and, on the other, the assimilation of the attitudes that are required in a person involved in caring. Both elements improve the capacity of the professionals to prevent and resolve ethical conflicts in the practice of care.     

A survey on the dietary and health habits according to action styles for unbalanced diets among female university students

OBJECTS: A survey of woman's students, who had grown up in a time of change-over of Japanese customs regarding food, was conducted to investigate dietary habits, a focus on actions in response to with set needs, The aim was to obtain to measure prospective health maintenance and promotion. METHODS: The authors carried out a questionnaire for woman's students in 6 universities of Kanto area (a junior college and graduate courses were included) in years 1999 and 2000. RESULTS: In actions regarding the diet, 19.1% of the 815 students responded "I eat everything without fail", 17.7% "I eat almost everything irrespective of likes and dislikes", 24.5% "I strive to eat everything", 19.8% "I leave almost everything I dislike", and 18.5% "I don't eat what I dislike". The students who responded "I leave almost everything I dislike" and "I don't eat what I dislike" had low scores in the questionnaire for dietary and health habits, and they tended to like noodles and popular snacks, and also made frequent use of fast food restaurants. There was not a problem with the majority, but about 30% of the students were judged as confirming an unbalanced diet by this questionnaire. It was found that there were "gaps" and "bad habits" in the regular diet. Moreover, we recognized a tendency to prefer convenience and taste to nutritional balance. CONCLUSION: This simple questionnaire is suitable for rapid identification of unbalanced distory habits, and both "gaps" and "bad habits" in the regular system diet. It is the most important that we induce students who leave or don't eat what they dislike, to strive to eat everything, irrespective of likes and dislikes.     

Same Principles,Different Worlds: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Medical Ethics and Nursing Ethics in Finnish Professional Texts

This qualitative social scientific study explores professional texts of healthcare ethics to understand the ways in which ethical professionalism in medicine and nursing are culturally constructed in Finland. Two books in ethics, published by Finnish national professional organizations—one for nurses and one for physicians—were analyzed with the method of critical discourse analysis. Codes of ethics for each profession were also scrutinized. Analysis of the texts sought to reveal what is taken for granted in the texts as well as to speculate what appeared to be relegated to the margins of the texts or left entirely invisible. Physicians’ ethics was discovered to emphasize objectivity and strong group membership as a basis for ethical professionalism. The discourses identified in the physicians’ ethics guidebook were universal ethics, reductionism, non-subjectivity, and threat. Nursing ethics was discovered to highlight reflectivity as its central focus. This idea of reflectivity was echoed in the identified discourses: local ethics, enlightenment, and moral agency. The analysis exposes a cultural gap between the ethics discourses of medicine and nursing. More work is needed to bridge ethics discourses in Finland in a way that can support healthcare professionals to find common ground and to foster inclusivity in ethical dialogue. Further development of bioethical practices is suggested as a potential way forward.