Summary
This paper is an investigation of emotional wellbeing and its relationship to contemporary
nursing practice for women community health nurses (CHNs) who are providing palliative
care. Palliative care provision has been acknowledged as a source of job satisfaction
for many nurses however emotional interactions place increasing strain on nurses’
wellbeing. Psychosocial aspects of care are reported as having a personal as well
as a professional impact. Work related stress places nurses at increased risk of harm
and impaired wellbeing. An emancipatory methodology was chosen for this study. Semi-structured
interviews and reflective journaling were the methods used. The data was collected
over a 16-month period during 2006–2007. There were fifteen participants. This qualitative
study explored Australian rural and urban community nurses’ experiences with wellbeing,
emotional work and their professional practice. The findings revealed opposing social
forces, an inner ‘dialectical’ tension between the nurses’ expectations of their professional
practices and what is valued in their practice settings. In terms of emotional wellbeing,
two overarching themes will be discussed: feeling balanced and feeling out of balance.
Workplace environments that were not always conducive to healing increased the emotional
strain on nurses. Nurses’ work promotes the healing of others therefore to deny the
healing of nurses’ is to deny others of healing. The need for further qualitative
research investigating the emotional wellbeing and professional practice of community
nurses who provide palliative care is necessary.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
August 4,
2009
Received in revised form:
June 8,
2009
Received:
October 13,
2008
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Royal College of Nursing, Australia. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
