An exploration of deaf women's access to mental health nurse education in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Historically deaf people have been denied access to professional nurse education due to a range of language, communication and ideological barriers. The following study was set in the North of England and draws upon the Western experience and knowledge base of deaf people's experience of access to professional education. The aim of this study was to understand the experiences of the first British Sign Language using deaf qualified nurses before they entered the Pre-registration Diploma in Nursing Programme, during the programme and after the programme as they progressed into professional nursing roles. The purpose of the study was to gather the nurses' thoughts and feelings about their experiences and to analyse these using thematic analysis within a narrative interpretive tradition against a backdrop of Jurgen Habermas' critical theory and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy. By drawing out significant themes to structure a deeper understanding of the nurses' unique positions, they offer a model for inclusive education practice that would support deaf people and people from minority groups into nursing and other health care professions. The signed narratives were video recorded and interpreted into written English transcripts which were then analysed to discover the underlying themes using Boyatzis' (1998) thematic analysis. The findings are set against an historical and contemporary setting of deaf people in Western society, their experiences of education, health and employment. These unique findings illustrate the significance of an accessible language environment for the nurses, the role of the organisation in ensuring access for the nurses and the impact of barriers to education and the clinical environment. The implications for education and practice supports the need to analyse the workforce required in deaf services, to scrutinize the access provided, to develop cultural competence skills, enhance the use of additional support mechanisms, generate accessible communities of practice and to draw upon the deaf nurses' own ideas and perspectives to develop accessible provision.