Negotiating Status and Identity Tensions in Healthcare Team Interactions: An Exploration of Nurse Role Dialectics

Abstract

As central figures in the healthcare team, nurses encounter a wide range of role expectations that increasingly require heightened interpersonal communication skills. Role dialectics, a construct integrating role theory and relational dialectics scholarship, is introduced to highlight the complexities of healthcare team communication and nurse professionalism. Specifically, researchers examined the role contradictions that emerged in team communication and the discursive processes by which nurses manage role tensions. Analysis of interview transcripts with 50 healthcare workers revealed three role dialectics that reflect over-arching issues of hierarchy, status, and professional identity that challenge nurses' communication in the healthcare team. Findings also identified the specific communication strategies nurses use to manage the role contradictions created in team interactions. Pragmatic conclusions are drawn regarding the evolving role of nurses in healthcare teams.