Ann Sheridan PhD
Sheridan A J (2003) An Analysis of the Activities of Psychiatric Nurses Practicing in Ireland 1950 – 2000. The University of Birmingham, School of Health Studies
contact: Dr Ann Sheridan, UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems, Health Sciences Centre, University College Dublin
Abstract
This study represents the first attempt in Ireland to examine the role of psychiatric nurses practicing in Ireland, and the changes in psychiatric nursing practice both over an extended time period and from a national perspective. This study has looked in detail at the last 50 years of psychiatric nursing in Ireland by focusing on the accounts of ‘Ordinary’ psychiatric nurses. It has captured the accounts of psychiatric nursing practice documented by nurses in patient records and through the directly recounted experiences of 587 psychiatric nurses practicing in Ireland, broadly equivalent to 6.1% of the current psychiatric nurse registrations in the live register maintained by An Bord Altranais.
Moreover, this study has placed psychiatric nursing practice in Ireland within the wider social, political, economic and religious contexts within which it occurs, and sought to examine how these wider issues influenced and determined psychiatric nursing practice in the past, continues to exert influence in the present, and will impact on future development.
The study was undertaken in two distinct but interrelated Phases with the first informing the design of the second. The research objectives were achieved through the sequential implementation of both within and between-method triangulation drawing on a suite of data collection approaches from historical, ethnography, survey and focus group traditions. The study design and methods employed enabled the adoption of a ‘progressive’ approach in that data collected from one source acted as a means through which subsequent data collection strategies were informed, modified and re-conceptualised, and original data verified.
The adoption of this approach contributed to an increased knowledge and understanding both of the role of the Irish psychiatric nurse and the interdependency of that role within the societal, institutional and service contexts within which it was practiced in the past and continues to be practiced.
By identifying a particular set of activities and identifying the pattern of change over the five decades, this study has defined a framework of issues from the practice level of Irish psychiatric nursing requiring action and further research in order to inform the appropriate future pattern of development of service delivery by nurses, of the psychiatric nursing discipline, and the professional education of psychiatric nurses.
