Student Corner
Emotional labour of nurses
Debbie Martschinke
Third year student, Flinders University, SA
PP: 022 - 025
Abstract
In the development of nursing as a profession there is a need for nurses to discuss the strategies they use to meet the emotional demands of the nurse-patient relationship. These demands have changed over time. Hochschild's definition of emotional labour is used as a means to understand the content of nurses' emotional work.
It is important that positive and supportive ward atmospheres are experienced by beginning nurse practitioners while they learn to cope with the emotional work involved in nursing. Emotional labour continues to be a very challenging aspect of nursing practice.
Keywords
emotions, nurse-patient relations
References
Fineman S (1993) Emotions in organisations. Sage Publications, London.
Lawler J (1991) Behind the Screens, Nursing Somology and the Problem of the Body. Churchill Livingstone, United Kingdom.
Lupton D (1994) Medicine as Culture. Sage Publications, London.
May C (1991) Affective neutrality and involvement in nurse-patient relationships: Perceptions of appropriate behaviour among nurses in acute medical and surgical wards. Journal of Advanced Nursing 16: 552-556.
Smith P (1988) The Emotional Labour of Nursing. Nursing Times 84(44): 50-51.
Smith P (1989) Nurse's Emotional Labour. Nursing Times 85(47): 49-51.
Smith P (1991) The Nursing Process: Raising the profile of emotional care in nursing training. Journal of Advanced Nursing 16: 76-80.
Straus A, Fagerhaugh S, Suczek B and Weiner C (1982) Sentimental work in the technologised hospital. Sociology of Health and Illness 4(3): 139-162.
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