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  5. Social regulation, medicalisation and the nurse's role: insights from an analysis of nursing documentation
 
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Social regulation, medicalisation and the nurse's role: insights from an analysis of nursing documentation

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Author(s)
Hyde, Abbey 
Treacy, Margaret P. 
Scott, Anne P. 
MacNeela, Padraig 
Butler, Michelle 
Drennan, Jonathan 
Irving, Kate 
Byrne, Anne 
Uri
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/4190
Date Issued
August 2006
Date Available
14T17:29:01Z March 2013
Abstract
Background: Medicine is recognised as a dominant source of governmentality and social regulation, and although nursing has been implicated in the same process, analytical work in this area has been sparse. Objectives: The article aims to present an analysis of nursing records in order to understand the structural and social processes that mediate the texts. Methods: 45 sets of nursing records drawn from four clinical sites in Ireland were subjected to a discourse analysis. Results: This article focuses on two main themes that were derived from data: (i) the manner in which nurses controlled, regulated and invigilated patients' activities of daily living and (ii) the way in which activities of daily living were mediated by a biomedical worldview in the clinical settings. Through the organising framework of Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), normative social practices relating to hygiene, eating and drinking, sleeping and so forth were surveyed and monitored within clinical settings. We construct qualitative categories around a range of ways that nurses assessed and judged patients' capacities at ADLs. Furthermore, it is argued that the framework of ADLs epitomises the medicalisation of normative social practices, whereupon the most mundane of normal functions become redefined as an actual or potential clinical pathology, legitimating nursing interventions. According to the nursing documentation, biochemical interventions in the form of various medications were the most dominant means through which nurses attempted to restore or improve the functional capacity of an ADL. Conclusion: We conclude by proposing that nurses' invigilation of patients' ADLs is not necessarily a repressive feature of nursing practice, but rather has the potential to be used to advocate on patients' behalf in certain circumstances.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal
International Journal of Nursing Studies
Volume
43
Issue
6
Start Page
735
End Page
744
Copyright (Published Version)
2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords
  • Activities of daily l...

  • Medicalisation

  • Nursing documentation...

  • Social regulation

DOI
10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2005.10.001
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ie/
Owning collection
Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems Research Collection
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27
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Mar 24, 2023
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