The emotion work of nurses in a person-centred care model

Abstract

With the departure in emotion sociology and caring science the aim of this article is to elucidate the emotion work as experienced by a group of nurses who tried out a customised form of a person-centred care model. Ten semi-structured interviews with following go-along were conducted. The most important empirical finding is the identifying of emotional caring as a specific part of the nurses' emotion management, comprising such knowledge that is specific to the competence of nurses. Emotional caring thus forms part of caring science, affected by the organisational structure, with bearing on the nurses' room for caring actions, that is, how, when and in what way emotional caring can be carried out. Moreover, in practice, person-centredness was compatible with the commonly shared values in caring science. The empirical material also shows that emotion management can be tied to profession, positions, status and power. The article contributes with an understanding of how working in a person-centred care model made it possible for the nurses to come closer to the patient's life world. Qualitative descriptions of the emotion management of a group of nurses in a certain caring context constitute another contribution, something that has not been investigated before.