Introduction
Nurses are among the important players in health care provision around the world. Their positive contribution to the medical industry cannot be emphasized enough. Zerwekh and Claborn (2006) affirm that nurses are an essential part of the health-delivery systems adopted all over the world. Despite their overall importance in the health care industry, nurses are faced with numerous personal and professional challenges as they conduct their duties.
This paper shall set out to provide a thematic analysis on the various experiences nurses have as they pursue their profession. The data analysis shall be based on a transcribed interview conducted by the researcher. The observable themes shall be identified, and an explanation of each theme provided in a bid to understand why the selected nurse chose this profession. In addition, the inherent benefits and challenges faced in the profession and the participant’s personal view on nursing shall also be highlighted.
Identification of Themes
After going through the transcribed interview, there were major themes that were identified. Noted Themes:
- Professional identity
- Professional socialization
However, further analysis revealed other themes which were subcategorized as shown in the table below:
Table showing the themes and their subcategories
The main objective of this research was to explore various aspects that influence an individual’s decision of becoming a professional nurse. To this end, an unstructured interview was used as the primary tool for data collection. The interview focused on the background of the participant, experiences during the profession, and the participant’s evaluation of nursing. An analysis of the data collected during the interview enabled the researcher to come up with the aforementioned themes.
Thematic Analysis of Identified Themes
Professional Identity
The identity of nursing and the people who practice it has met various challenges over the past decades. Thupayagale and Dithole (2005) stated:
“Nursing has, for many years, struggled with an inner hunger, a deep need for professional congruency and effectiveness. The perception by many people, except those aligned to nursing, see nursing as an inferior and inadequate undertaking to be regarded as a profession.” (p. 152)
This statement shows that nursing lacks recognition and tolerates being oppressed. Evidence of this during the interview emerged as the interviewee shared her childhood stories. For example, she stated that her grandmother had little regard to nursing and stated that “it had a bad reputation”. In addition, the interviewee’s grandmother referred to nurses as “whorish” individuals. Such perceptions go to show how nursing and nurses are viewed by some members of society. In addition, it shows that regardless of its importance in the health care industry, nursing is not fully appreciated and recognized as a profession. Data from the interview (in addition to that collected from nursing literature) showed that nursing professional identity had been eroded. This would explain why nurses (including the interviewee) have to work hard to prove that what they do is equally as important as any other profession.
Parental Approval/Acceptance
From the interview, it was clear that the interviewee’s parents played a significant role in her choice of career. She descriptively narrates how her mother’s dampened desire to become a nurse inspired her to become a nurse. In addition, as early as age fourteen, her father provided the resources (books and money) needed to pursue this career path. As a result, she dedicated her efforts towards becoming a nurse despite the fact that she hated reading. As such, her determination to succeed in this regard can be viewed as an attempt to guarantee parental approval/acceptance.
The interviewee further stated that she took good care of her father’s friends when she treated them. In return, they told her father how good she was at her job. This also shows that she wished to maintain her father’s pride in relation to what she did. It is also evident that she ensured her success in order to prove to herself and those that had a negative attitude towards nursing that nursing is as good a profession as any other since it offered the practitioners a chance to help others and positively impact their society. The struggles discussed under this theme relate to the theme of professional identity in the sense that the interviewee tried to uplift the professional identity of nursing and nurses through her actions and efforts.
Essence of time and care
This theme was deduced from the stories the interviewee narrated in regard to how nursing has lost the essence of quality care over the decades. As an example, she stated that “there is no time to take care of patient due to documentation constraints, just time to do the basics. Hospitalization time has decreased substantially”. She explained that nurses no longer have adequate time to properly cater for their patient’s needs. She attributed this to working conditions, which saw nurses working long shifts as a result of a large influx of sick people.
CT’s comment regarding the working conditions of nurses is supported by Zerwekh and Claborn (2006), who agree to the fact that there seems to be a general shortage of nurses in most parts of the world. The authors further assert that this shortage has resulted in a situation where the few nurses available are overworked and stressed. Consequently, more mistakes are being made by nurses and lesser time allocated to patients as nurses try to attend to the large number of patients flowing into healthcare facilities. The interviewee’s desire to work in the 70’s clearly supports the fact that there has been substantial erosion in the professional identity of nursing and nurses over the decades.
Stechmiller (2002) also states that job strain and emotional exhaustion are among the key challenges faced by nurses. The author further states that the high mortality rates experienced in ICUs, numerous human errors and ethical dilemmas faced by nurses, lack of mentoring experience and poor interdisciplinary coordination are as a result of high stress levels exhibited by nurses. The author also reveals that nurses’ inability to provide routine care is as a result of time and procedural constraints that characterize today’s healthcare systems.
In regard to quality of care, the interviewee noted that the quality of nursing today has deteriorated significantly as compared to the situation in the 70’s. She insinuated that nurses today are making more mistakes and have shallow understanding on various ethical and moral issues that are pertinent to nursing. For example, she stated that nurses today place more emphasis on the financial gains attributed to the profession, rather than the quality of care they offer their patients. Johnstone (2008) states that nurses are expected to promote and protect the interests and wellbeing of their patients in accordance to the nursing ethical code of conduct. As such, nurses are expected to refrain from offering services that lack in quality, or behave in a manner that risks the lives of their patients.
Professional Socialization
According to Mooney (2007), professional socialization refers to the process through which practitioners learn various aspects of the profession from other practitioners in order to become professionals. This theme was deduced from the fact that the interviewee placed great emphasis on the importance of being a team player and working as a team in the nursing profession. Professional socialization is important to individuals since it gives them an opportunity to learn from the best and belong (associate and identify themselves with their colleagues).
Teamwork/Closeness of Staff
This theme focused on the interactive/socialization ability of nurses. The interviewee supported Reeves et al (2011), who states that teamwork is a very important factor when it comes to execution of duties. To support this statement, the interviewee gave an example of an incident where the nurses worked together to help a deteriorating patient. However, she claims that teamwork is threatened by the fact that today’s healthcare practitioners are more concerned with lawsuits rather than the delivery of quality care. The fear of being sued has been documented as a major reason as to why medical practitioners prefer working alone (Nemie, 2009). In a team setting, all members are responsible for the mistakes made by one member. This may have serious legal, ethical and professional consequences. As such, most people like taking care of patients on their own to avoid such incidences.
Societal/Peer Influence on Education
According to Lesser and Pope (2010), society plays a pivotal role in determining who we are or who we become. This statement is supported by Erikson’s developmental theory, which asserts that human behavior is as a result of social and environmental interactions (Lesser & Pope, 2010). From the onset, the interviewee clearly indicated that her society (particularly her family) valued education. Her mother wanted to be a nurse and her father tried his level best to get her the resources needed to further her education. Such instances show that the interviewee’s childhood society influenced her ability to learn and succeed in that endeavor. Similarly, the interviewee’s ambition to become a teacher shows that she believed that education would influence the upcoming practitioners’ attitude towards their professions and help them become more enlightened and professional in their practices.
CT’s decision to go back to school because her peers were doing the same was a clear indication of peer influence. This was further supported by the fact that she wanted to be the best at what she does. The desire to excel in this case is a clear indication of competitiveness and need for self efficacy that is mostly inspired by peer influence (desire to be better than one’s peers).
From the interview, it was clear that the participant’s educational professional and educational achievements were greatly determined by her surroundings. According to Chapman and Hopwood (2007, p.120), Vroom’s expectancy theory suggests that people choose actions, effort levels and occupation that “maximize their expected pleasure and minimize their expected pain, consistent with hedonism”. Therefore, the participant’s motivation to excel stemmed from her expected gains, which included peer, parental and societal approval, as well as self gratification.
Conclusion
This paper set out to provide a thematic analysis of data collected during an interview. The major themes were identified and an explanation as to why they were chosen. From the interview critique presented herein, it is evident that professional identity and professional socialization are among the core issues that affect nursing and nurses around the world. Therefore, it would be a worthwhile endeavor to delve deeper into such issues to come up with possible and applicable solutions for the same.
References
Chapman, S., & Hopwood, G. (2007). Handbook of management accounting research. New York: Elsevier.
Johnstone, M. (2008). Questioning nursing ethics (ethics & legal). Australian Nursing Journal, 15(1), 19.
Lesser, J., & Pope, D. (2010). Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Theory and Practice. New York: Prentice Hall PTR.
Mooney, M. (2007). Professional socialization: The key to survival as a newly qualified nurse. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 13(2), 75 – 80.
Nemie, J. K. (2009). Challenges for the Nursing Profession in Malaysia: Evolving Legal and Ethical Standards. Journal of Nursing Law, 13(2), 54 – 63.
Reeves et al. (2011). Interprofessional Teamwork for Health and Social Care. Boston: John Wiley and Sons.
Stechmiller, J. K. (2002). The Nursing Shortage in Acute and Critical Care Settings. AACN Clinical Issues, 13(4), 577 – 584.
Zerwekh, G., & Claborn, C. (2006). Nursing today: transition and trends. New York: Elsevier Health Sciences.