PURPOSE: This study was carried out to identify and re-establish the professional identity in clinical nurses. METHOD: From Dec. 1999, for 4 months, the study had been conducted by narrative analysis method based on hermeneutic principles. Subjects were ten nurses with 3-4 years of nursing experience at a university hospital. The data were collected and transcribed through narrative interviews. RESULT: As a result, the maternal role was identified as the most dominant discourse in which nurses formed their identity. Subjects felt that a maternity is socio-culturally needed in case of nursing. Reconstruction of professional identity consists of 3 stages, Telling, Retelling and Rebuilding. At first, nurses felt confused by skeptism of the profession, interpersonal difficulties, and heavy work loads. However, during the interviews, nurses recognized that nursing is not regarded as significant, effort to make nursing meaningful were small, and there was a lack of understanding others. From this new insight, they re-established a new image of nursing "through better understanding of others, seeking knowledge, and making positive efforts towards qualified nursing". CONCLUSION: The above narrative interviews may help nurses reflect and contextually interpret themselves, so that a new identity could be established. Furthermore researchers can obtain new insight from the subjects, while the subjects form a new nursing image from self-reflection.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by  

• Anxiety, Nursing Satisfaction Level, and Experience of Users of The General Health Checkup Center: A Mixed Methods Study
  Eun Kook Kim, Hyejin Hyun, Yeon Jeong Heo
  Journal of Korean Association for Qualitative Research.2024; 9(3): 242.     CrossRef
• Mediating Effect of Organizational Commitment in the Relationship between Professional Identity and Job Satisfaction
  Seonghyun Yoo, Myoung Soo Kim, Hyoung Sook Park
  Journal of Health Informatics and Statistics.2019; 44(4): 339.     CrossRef
• Experience of Hospital Administrative Nurses' Work Adjustment
  Hyun-Ju Lee, Jae-Hyun Ha, Yun-Seo Jung, Jungmi Yun
  Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration.2019; 25(5): 424.     CrossRef
• The influencing factors of Ego-Resilience and Empowerment on Nursing Professionalism among Nursing Students
  Ha-na Lee, Joo-Hyun Kim
  Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society.2016; 17(8): 292.     CrossRef
• Affecting Factors of Nursing Professionalism Perceived by Nursing Students
  
  Journal of East-West Nursing Research.2015; 21(1): 10.     CrossRef
• Effects of an Education Program using a Narrative Approach for Women with Breast Cancer
  Myungsun Yi, Young Mi Ryu, Jieun Cha
  Perspectives in Nursing Science.2014; 11(1): 39.     CrossRef
• Employment Experiences of Nurses Caring for Foreign Patients
  Hyoung-Sook Park, Su-Jung Ha, Jung-Ha Park, Ji-Hyoung Yu, Sang-Hwa Lee
  Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration.2014; 20(3): 281.     CrossRef
• Process of Overcoming Turnover Intention in Career Nurses
  Ha Yoon Cheong, Sun Hee Yun
  Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration.2013; 19(3): 414.     CrossRef
• Factor Analysis of Core Values of Professionalism in Physical Therapy
  Eun-Young Park, Won-Ho Kim, Kwan-Woo Lee
  Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society.2012; 13(12): 5901.     CrossRef