European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics (ENHE)
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Suicide Through the Eyes of Fellow Patients (1920–2020)
Get PDFThis article shows how suicides in psychiatric hospitals were described by fellow patients in the past and how these descriptions relate to developments in the context of nursing and care. This is a hitherto unexplored area of research. From the sources – six autobiographical novels about life in psychiatric hospitals – it can be tentatively concluded that, whether the story is set in 1920, 1970 or 2010, three factors are almost always represented: suicide is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the psychiatric hospital, it has a great impact on fellow patients, and patients can be very concerned about the fate of their fellow patients. However, some differ-ences can also be pointed out that have to do with the time in which the story is set. More research is needed to support and deepen the preliminary conclusion
The History of Pediatric Nursing in Germany. Outlining a Research Desideratum
Get PDFThe history of pediatric nursing is an underexplored field, particularly in the German-speaking world. While nursing history has seen significant research progress in recent years, there is still a gap regarding the specific evolution of pediatric nursing. This article outlines key research questions and areas of relevance for pediatric nursing history, addressing topics such as the professionals involved, the role of infant mortality reduction, infection control, changing childcare ideals, and the relationship between pediatric and general nursing. While the focus is on Germany, these perspectives are at least partly transferable to other European countries
The Tightrope Walked by Psychiatric Nursing Staff Caring for People with Suicidal Thoughts Between 1920 and 1970
Get PDFIm psychiatrischen Pflegealltag befanden sich die Pflegerinnen und Pfleger in einem ethischen Dilemma zwi-schen der Überwachung und der Betreuung suizidaler Patienten. Einerseits mussten sie strenge Anweisun-gen befolgen, um Suizide zu verhindern, andererseits sollten sie die Patienten nicht unnötig einschränken und ihnen dennoch ein gewisses Maß an Freiheit lassen. Es war eine Gratwanderung zwischen Kontrolle und Vertrauen. Die Bekämpfung und Verhinderung von Suiziden wurde daher als eine sehr anspruchsvolle Aufgabe der psychiatrischen Pflege angesehen. Die Analyse historischer Quellen wie Lehrbücher, Kranken-akten, Jahresberichte der Klinik, Protokolle der Aufsichtsbehörde und Interviews mit ehemaligen Kranken-schwestern geben einen umfassenden Einblick in den Umgang mit dem Thema im 20. Jahrhundert.
Suizidversuche und Suizide können als Handlungen von Patienten interpretiert werden, um sich aus einer für sie nicht mehr erträglichen Lebenssituation zu befreien. Die psychiatrische Lehre geht davon aus, dass sich Suizide nicht absolut verhindern lassen. Sie kamen nicht sehr häufig vor. Selten wurden Krankenschwestern und -pfleger für Selbstmorde bestraft, aber dennoch fühlten sie sich schlecht und hatten auch Jahrzehnte nach solchen schweren Vorfällen Schuldgefühle. Das Risiko von Selbstmorden kann minimiert werden, wenn das Pflegepersonal gut qualifiziert ist und ausreichende Ressourcen für die tägliche Pflege zur Verfügung hat.Nurses working in psychiatric care in the 20th century faced an ethical dilemma between monitoring and caring for suicidal patients. On the one hand, they had to comply with strict instructions to prevent suicides, but on the other hand, they were not supposed to restrict patients unnecessarily and should still allow them a certain amount of freedom. It was a tightrope walk between control and trust. Combating and preventing suicides was therefore considered to be a very challenging task within psychiatric nursing. An analysis of historical sources, such as textbooks, annual hospital reports, medical records, minutes of the supervisory committee, and interviews with former nurses, gives a broad insight into how the issue was dealt with in the 20th century. Suicide attempts and suicides could be interpreted as actions by patients to free themselves from a life situation that they no longer found bearable. Psychiatric doctrine assumed that suicides could not be prevented altogether. They did not happen very often. Nurses were rarely sanctioned for suicides, but nevertheless felt bad and had feelings of guilt even decades after such serious incidents. The risk of suicide can be minimised if nurses are well qualified and have sufficient resources available for everyday care duties
“An Optimal Relationship of Familiarity and Trust”: Operating Room Nurses’ Material Knowledge of Surgical Instruments (1900–1975)
Get PDFThis article investigates the development of nurses’ knowledge of surgical instruments in the twentieth century. Material knowledge has been an overlooked area of nursing history. Yet surgical nurses in particular gained a great amount of knowledge about the material qualities, handling, manoeuvring, and arranging of many different types and varieties of surgical instruments. By studying objects, film, handbooks, and the first Dutch journal for surgical nurses, this article focuses on three areas of material “literacy”, using the Dutch context as a case study. First, it explores the way nurses had to understand and work with different materials before, during and after operations. Second, it discusses training in dealing with instruments. And third, it considers the explicit need for and discussions around uniformity and standards for surgical instruments, which show the professionalisation of surgical nursing during the 1960s and 1970s. By taking a fresh look at surgical instruments from the nurses’ perspective, a new picture emerges, revealing the importance of surgical instruments for nursing history
Nurses and the Moral Treatment of Suicidal Patients in 19th-Century France
Get PDFWith the decriminalization of suicide and its reconceptualization as a psychiatric problem in 19th-century France, nurses were recognized as playing an important role in its prevention and treatment. Focusing pri-marily on 19th-century psychiatric studies on suicide and on psychiatric nursing staff, the objective of this article is twofold: 1) to examine early treatment and prevention methods in the emerging medical branch of psychiatry; and 2) to situate the role of nursing staff in early 19th-century French asylums in implementing these methods. More specifically, I will focus on the nurses’ crucial role in the moral treatment of suicidal patients and the application of the non-restraint method, as it was developed by Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) in France and John Conolly (1794–1866) in England. I will argue that these non-coercive reforms in the treat-ment of psychiatric and suicidal patients contributed to discussions among alienists about the model profile of a nurse and to the progressive development of the nursing profession (before its official recognition as such and the establishment of formal training programs at the end of the 19th century in France)
Historiographic and Biographic Accounts of Danish Deaconesses Serving in the Faroe Islands 1897–1948
Get PDFThe Faroe Islands are an archipelago of 18 islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. Basic organized nursing there began in the late 1890s with arrival of two Danish deaconesses sent to the islands to improve the population’s health and move Faroese nursing and nurse education closer to international standards. Twenty-five Danish deaconesses served in the Faroe Islands during the first half of the 1900s. The overall aim of this article is to contribute to nursing history about the deaconesses in the Faroe Islands. In caring and historic contexts, and using historiographic and biographic approaches, we present and discuss excerpts of letters from some of the Danish deaconesses, in which they discuss their daily work, life, and ethical dilemmas while in the Faroe Islands. Findings demonstrate that the deaconesses were nurse pioneers, establishing professional nursing and nurse education fol¬lowing Danish rules and regulations of the time. We conclude by emphasizing the meaning of the deaconesses for modern Faroese nursing and nursing education, and the importance of keeping the history of nursing in mind
Nurses from Here – Epidemics from There. The Encounter between Nurses from Eretz Israel and Holocaust Survivors Abroad, in an Effort to Eradicate Epidemics and Morbidity 1945–1948
Get PDFThroughout history, wars and epidemics have been interrelated, as are immigration and health problems. At the end of the Second World War (WWII), Jewish survivors of the Holocaust wandered across European countries hoping to find living relatives. Many of them were gathered in temporary displaced persons camps operated by the Allied forces and humanitarian organizations. The survivors were in poor health, exhausted physically, emotionally, and morally, and suffered from a variety of contagious diseases. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the roles, experiences, and contributions of the nurses “from here” – Eretz Israel – who volunteered as emissaries to care for their Jewish brothers and sisters wherever needed. Our study followed the nurses through three different immigration camps between 1945 and 1948. First, in the displaced persons camps (DP camps) for Holocaust survivors in Germany (“over there”). Next, in the detention camps in Cyprus, where the British held refugees caught trying to enter Eretz Israel without the correct immigration papers (“over there”). Lastly, a short glimpse into the complex reality the nurses faced within the absorption camps for new immigrants in Israel (“back here”). The nurses’ ingenuity and resourcefulness made up for the lack of means and infrastructure in eradicating epidemics and caring for the immigrants. In the light of the current trends of mass immigration and global pandemics, the discussion focuses on potential lessons that can be learned from the unique Israeli experience of integrating immigrants and overcoming epidemics
Too Close for Comfort? The Social Health of Geriatric Nurses During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany
Get PDFBackground: The first COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 had detrimental effects on both the residents and staff of long-term care facilities in Germany. Regulations to prevent the spread of the virus closed off facilities to visitors, creating social and physical distancing of residents and changing the daily routines of residents and nursing staff alike. Using a grounded theory approach, this study explores the impact of COVID-19 regulations on the social health of geriatric nurses in long-term care facilities in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews after the first lockdown (June/July 2020) and during the second lock¬down (November 2020–March 2021) with 13 nurses, primarily those in management positions. Results: We found that COVID-19 regulations changed the relationship between nurses and residents in important ways. First, nurses became primary caregivers and proxies for the relatives and professionals (e.g. hairdressers, physiotherapists) with whom residents typically interact. Second, strict regulations regarding hygiene, physi-cal and social distancing, and visitors contrasted sharply with nursing as a holistic practice and profession. Third, although nurses had to remain distanced from residents, they simultaneously developed greater emotional closeness. This dynamic affected the social health of both groups, raising important ethical questions about nursing responsibilities and emotional capacities in geriatric care during times of extended crisis such as the pandemic
Uncertainties and Coping Strategies among Nurses During the First Wave of Covid-19 in Germany – Nursing Students’ Use of Diary Entries to Document their Experiences during the First Wave of Infections in the Covid-19 Pandemic
Get PDFBackground: In March 2020, German hospitals were preparing for the first major wave of Covid-19 infections, implementing crisis management procedures without precedent or prior testing. At this time, we asked stu-dent nurses in their eighth semester of study to complete a nursing diary for a period of four weeks. The aim of this research was to ascertain students’ perceptions of the constantly evolving crisis and retrace their re-flections on the situation on the basis of the knowledge they had at the time.
Methods: Eleven students completed a nursing diary, which entailed writing entries on the care they provid-ed on the wards to which they were assigned. They added images such as pictures, screenshots and draw-ings to their diary entries. We analysed the data using ethnographic methods as follows: a) categorisation of the entries in accordance with general thematic similarities; b) comparison of the entries with published nurs-ing literature from this time period, with the aim of identifying possible gaps in the content of our data.
Results: The student nurses worked on different wards; some volunteered to staff the newly established Covid-19 wards. Nursing students felt the unfolding crisis to be defined by a sense of uncertainty and poten-tial threat, associated with various fears. The students described their own actions and behaviour in specific situations and outlined observations of others. We categorised our findings in four sub-topics: a) crisis man-agement; b) the invisible crisis; c) a sense of crisis; and d) coping with the crisis.
Discussion: In giving insights into the day-to-day work of nurses under extreme conditions, the diaries col-lected and analysed for this study highlight experiences of ambivalence and uncertainty during the first wave of Covid-19 infections. Specifically, the students’ reflections on professional responsibility point to this principle’s importance within the system of values espoused by members of the nursing profession.Background: In March 2020, German hospitals were preparing for the first major wave of Covid-19 infections, implementing crisis management procedures without precedent or prior testing. At this time, we asked stu-dent nurses in their eighth semester of study to complete a nursing diary for a period of four weeks. The aim of this research was to ascertain students’ perceptions of the constantly evolving crisis and retrace their re-flections on the situation on the basis of the knowledge they had at the time.
Methods: Eleven students completed a nursing diary, which entailed writing entries on the care they provided on the wards to which they were assigned. They added images such as pictures, screenshots and drawings to their diary entries. We analysed the data using ethnographic methods as follows: a) categorisation of the entries in accordance with general thematic similarities; b) comparison of the entries with published nursing literature from this time period, with the aim of identifying possible gaps in the content of our data.
Results: The student nurses worked on different wards; some volunteered to staff the newly established Covid-19 wards. Nursing students felt the unfolding crisis to be defined by a sense of uncertainty and potential threat, associated with various fears. The students described their own actions and behaviour in specific sit¬uations and outlined observations of others. We categorised our findings in four sub-topics: a) crisis manage¬ment; b) the invisible crisis; c) a sense of crisis; and d) coping with the crisis.
Discussion: In giving insights into the day-to-day work of nurses under extreme conditions, the diaries col-lected and analysed for this study highlight experiences of ambivalence and uncertainty during the first wave of Covid-19 infections. Specifically, the students’ reflections on professional responsibility point to this princi¬ple’s importance within the system of values espoused by members of the nursing profession
