THE NATURE OF NURSES' EXPERIENCES IN FOR-PROFIT PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL SETTINGS (PATIENT ABUSE).
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1995
Number of pages: 315
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Mental Health.
Description: The purpose of my research was to determine how nurses experienced their professional situations during the time in which crucial events unfolded that resulted in the allegations of for-profit psychiatric hospitals engaging in fraud, patient abuse and unethical conduct. The focus of my inquiry centered on ethical misgivings, sense-making and the concept of patient advocacy within a context that is presumed to have presented multiple ethical contradictions to the nurse informants.

In this qualitative study I employed Denzin's (1989) interpretive interactionism method as a sensitizing approach. My intent was to understand the lived experiences of these nurses through their narrated epiphany experiences by using Denzin's method and to contextualize the findings within a larger environmental context using a number of archival and historical sources. The findings will provide information about the nature of nurses' experiences with circumstances that might preclude or facilitate various advocacy activities that they might take in behalf of clients and thereby improve quality of work life for nurses and quality of care for a vulnerable population of clients. I based my informant selection on a theoretical sampling of nurses who were employed in for profit psychiatric hospitals in Texas between the years of 1985-1991.

Seven themes were culled from the nurses' narratives. These were labeled: naivete, awareness, pain, resistance-action, rejection to resistance, climacteric and denouement. Conclusions suggest that nurses felt poorly prepared for their roles; they often failed to recognize and deal with individual and organizational deviance; they were subjected to intimidation tactics by management when they took patient advocacy positions; when confronted with situations they felt powerless to influence or exit, they "bracketed off" their feelings and focused on tasks. The results have policy, research, education and practice implications inasmuch as health care delivery is becoming increasingly management controlled and profit-oriented.

This research constitutes the initial phase of an ongoing program of research in which I intend to examine the outcomes with respect to the clients who were present in these hospitals.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-06, Section: B, page: 3128.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1995.

School code: 0227.