INTIMATE STRANGERS: AIDS NURSING AS A CONTEMPORARY CALLING. AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY (IMMUNE DEFICIENCY).
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 176
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The aim of this ethnographic study was to describe the professional practice of nurses in AIDS care as disclosed in their discourse. French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's writings on discourse and interpretation guided the investigation. The inquiry was prompted by an observation of the diverse reactions of nurses to HIV/AIDS care. Some of the questions of interest were, What meanings do nurses in AIDS care find in their work? What factors attract them to, and keep them in, AIDS nursing?.

The group interview/discussion method was used to collect data. Professional nurses who work "hands on" with people with AIDS on a regular basis were recruited for the study. Although criteria for participation in the study included both nurses who were assigned as well as those who chose to work in AIDS care, all 25 nurses who volunteered for the study work in AIDS nursing by choice. Four groups of five to seven nurses met one time only. Data were analyzed and interpreted by ethnographic techniques of coding, indexing, enumeration, constant comparison, and analytic induction.

Themes emerging from the analysis of the nurses' discourse included satisfaction and fulfillment in caring for stigmatized and marginalized people; a strong sense of advocacy in helping people live with AIDS and die with dignity; tolerance for and comfort with people different from themselves, in terms of class, race, behaviors, lifestyles, and values; personal and professional alienation associated with the stigma of AIDS work; acknowledgment but not overriding fear of occupational risk of infection; the intellectual, physical, and emotional challenge presented by the ever-changing clinical and demographic profile of the syndrome; and the liberating impact of the opportunity to practice more holistically and autonomously and to redefine the boundaries between their personal and professional lives as well as nursing itself.

The composite image of AIDS nursing practice by nurses in this study is consistent with Rawnsley's concept of instrumental friendship and Kobasa's theory of hardiness. Two metaphors were conceptualized by the researcher to describe the data: the practice domain of AIDS nursing as a "contemporary calling" and the nurse-patient relationship as "intimate strangers.".
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-04, Section: B, page: 1376.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1994.

School code: 0055.