Professional identity of nurses in the perception of users of primary health care
International Journal of Development Research
Professional identity of nurses in the perception of users of primary health care
Received 18th March, 2020; Received in revised form 20th April, 2020; Accepted 10th May, 2020; Published online 25th June, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Camila Rolim Figueiredo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Objective: To analyze, in the speeches of patients, the relation that complies the nurse's professional identity in the primary health care area. Methods: descriptive study with a qualitative approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 22 users of Primary Health Care in the city of Cajazeiras, Paraiba, Brazil. The interviews were conducted in the period between June and July 2017. For the data analysis, the Collective Subject Discourse was chosen. Results: three categories emerged: the uniform as a limiting element of the nurse's identification; blurring of nurses' practices in Primary Health Care: from shared to specific, and, finally, the limitation of the nurse as an assistant to the doctor. Final considerations: in view of the speeches, it was possible to perceive the superficiality of the users' knowledge when not being able to recognize the essence of the profession, and consequently the professional identity of this category.
