NURSING WAR: A PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PROFESSION OF NURSING AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE.
Contributors: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 319
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Industrial.; Political Science, General.
Description: The purpose of this study is to examine critically, using philosophical methods and interpretive prose, the relationship between the nursing profession and the phenomenon of political violence. Nursing history is intimately tied to wars, and while many nurse researchers have studied nurses' experiences in particular wars, no one has yet studied the nature of nursing's interactions with war.

Published personal accounts of nurses who served in World War I were used to describe the experience of war nursing. The generated description of war nursing was regarded as a description of nursing in any war. This experience included a personal transformation; the nurses began as young, enthusiastic and naive, and ended feeling old, tired, and cynical, especially cynical about war itself. The personal accounts were explored further to describe the meaning of the experience of war nursing. Four themes involving contrasts and irony were identified; taken together these themes showed the experience of war nursing to be morally conflictual in nature. The idea that nurses' participation in war fostered perpetuation of war itself was developed.

The profession's political responses to war was described. A historical survey of twentieth century wars demonstrated how the organized profession has generally supported and facilitated war efforts. Minority voices within the profession, nurses who opposed war supporting activities, were identified and explored.

Selected theoretical concepts in common usage within the profession were described to demonstrate that political violence is a phenomenon that can be identified as compelling attention by nursing, but that to date this concept has not been developed by nursing scholars or theorists. The moral delimma inherent in nursing during wartime was also identified from an examination of nursing's ethical codes juxaposed against the realities of political violence.

Taken together the themes explored in this study identified an emerging need for the profession of nursing to pay attention to the phenomenon of political violence in general, and to engage in deliberate, widespread, public discussion on the topic as a first step towards actions designed to resolve the moral dilemma inherent in the relationship between nursing and political violence.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-08, Section: B, page: 4026.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1992.

School code: 0831.