What does care 'cost' nurses?

In Denmark, where public welfare is a cornerstone of society, healthcare plays a central role. Within that, everyone has expectations about how things should be run and what to expect  – especially of the approximately 35,000 nurses working in the public sector.

Nurses must be able to manage their emotions every day. At the same time, they must also be able to provide care and give attention to their patients.

»Healthcare professionals learn during their education and later through socialisation in the workplace which emotions are in line with professional and institutional ideals for good practice. In particular, the way in which they learn to make sense of and regulate not only the positive, but also negative emotions is crucial for how the institution of public healthcare is maintained or destabilised,« says Ninna Meier, associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Aalborg University, and continues: 

»It is therefore important whether you as a nurse can give meaning to negative emotions within the nursing profession, or whether they are seen as a breach of good practice and perhaps therefore something that conflicts with professional identity and belonging.«

She will now lead a research project, supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark, in which a PhD student will investigate how nurses learn to regulate negative emotions in connection with their work.

What resources are available to nurses?

During their training , nurses learn to maintain  a professional relationship with their patients, including how to manage their own emotions.

But this balence can be difficult to acheive when you factor in additional time pressures. In these situations, how can a nurse do their very best for their patients? 

»We really want to investigate how nurses learn to regulate their negative emotions and what resources are available to them in their everyday lives. For example, is it possible to have a short time-out with a colleague after a difficult situation? Have routines been created that support both newcomers and experienced nurses in dealing with negative emotions in a professional community?,« Ninna Meier elaborates and adds:

»We assume that the organisational resources nurses can access, especially through collaboration with colleagues, has an impact on how they learn to regulate negative emotions in a way that is in line with their professional  identity as a nurse and that supports good practice on the ward. We expect this to have implications for the individual, for the workplace and for the nursing profession and public health as a whole.«

Collaboration between Aalborg University and Amager and Hvidovre Hospital

In the three-and-a-half-year research project, a PhD student will investigate how nurses learn to regulate negative emotions in connection with their work, what organisational conditions and resources there are for this task, and what significance regulation of negative emotions has for the maintenance of social institutions such as public healthcare.

The project is based on document studies, interviews and observations of nurses' work practices.

The project group consists of Ninna Meier, her colleague at the Department of Sociology and Social Work Associate Professor Morten Kyed and a PhD student. The project is carried out in collaboration with the Clinical Research Department at Amager and Hvidovre Hospital.