Problematizing Boundaries of Care Responsibility in Caring Relationships

Solidarity in a Community of Nursing Colleagues

Introduction

Several concepts have been used to describe the qualities of communities of nursing colleagues. Nonetheless, few studies have shed light on nursing communities by drawing on the concept of solidarity.

Objective

To explore solidarity among a community of nursing colleagues.

Methods

A qualitative research design with a reflective life world approach was selected. This study reused data from a larger Norwegian empirical study. The data from the original study consisted of qualitative interviews and follow-up interviews with 13 nurses (RNs). The research context was municipality and specialist health services. A secondary data analysis was conducted. The study was based on the SRQR reporting guidelines.

Results

The results were formulated under two themes: 1) having indispensable relationships and 2) encountering a relative absence of sympathy.

Conclusion

A sense of community among nursing colleagues seems to rely on solidarity: whatever affects one nurse affects another. The solidarity that arose from the content of commonalities involved maintaining indispensable relationships with nursing colleagues by supporting and aiding them and simultaneously enduring a relative absence of sympathy. Solidarity among the community in this study was not a peripheral concept of the general notion of solidarity, implying that the commonalities within the collegial relationships were ambiguous and could shift from something good to something relatively good and vice versa. Such a shift was evidenced by nurses’ experiences of their community.

Nurses' Remaining in Everyday Nursing Practice-A Comprehensive Model

Previous theoretical and empirical models of nurses' remaining in everyday nursing practice are explained by elements such as intent to stay and desire to stay. This study provides a model that expands or expresses an increased understanding of the comprehensiveness of the issue by pointing to the qualitative worth of different desires. The aim of this study is to describe a comprehensive model of nurses' remaining in everyday nursing practice. This study was designed in three sequential stages: first, the empirical foundation of the model; second, the development of the model; and third, the description of the model. The described model is derived from a previous qualitative study's comprehensive understanding of empirical findings. That original study was based on a hermeneutical approach, the aim of which was to understand what is of significance for nurses to remain in everyday practice. The collected data consisted of qualitative interviews and qualitative follow-up interviews with 13 nurses. The research context was the primary and secondary somatic and psychiatric health service. The present comprehensive model is stated in a simple structure, which nonetheless provides a relevant framework for constituent elements of nurses' remaining in everyday practice. Horizons of identity and self-understanding have been identified as constituent elements or key concepts involved in remaining. By focusing on a deepened and broader understanding, the model highlights that remaining may be constituted through a process of identification and taking standpoints, which in turn has a potential to empower nurses to realize themselves.