COPING WITH WAR: AN ORAL HISTORY OF UNITED STATES ARMY FLIGHT NURSES WHO FLEW WITH THE ARMY AIR FORCES IN WORLD WAR II.
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 236
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: War is a universally stressful event that may tax or exceed one's ability to cope. The problem addressed in the study was to describe how United States Army nurses assigned as flight nurses with the Army Air Forces during World War II coped with war and the situations they perceived as taxing or exceeding their resources. The purpose of the study was to analyze the data obtained from oral histories of flight nurses who served in World War II. The theory of psychological stress, appraisal, and coping developed by Lazarus and colleagues guided the analysis of data. Twenty-five women who had flown as flight nurses in World War II were interviewed using a 20-question interview guide to focus on their coping efforts. Content analysis of data from typed transcripts of the interviews revealed two levels of coping; a taxonomy of coping efforts was developed for each level. The microscopic level consisted of specific external demands of living conditions and the flight nurse role, and of specific internal demands of concern for others and one's own vulnerability, occurring during the war, that necessitated coping. The macroscopic level consisted of behavioral efforts classified by social relationships, physical stamina, creativity, and adjustment, and of cognitive efforts classified by expectation, devotion, self-reliance, and psychological endurance, used to cope with the war in general. Findings suggest that the women perceived their wartime experience as a challenge rather than as a threat and were thus able to make the best out of the stressful war situation. The advice of the flight nurses of World War II to flight nurses of the present and of the future is included as part of the study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-12, Section: B, page: 4821.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1986.

School code: 0227.