title: Constructing international professional identity: what psychiatric nurses talk about on the Internet.
abstract: The Internet is in the very early stages of being exploited by psychiatric nurses. Following an explanation of e-mail lists, this paper describes an analysis of the first 16 months operation of such a list devoted to psychiatric nursing. Those topics having international resonance for psychiatric nurses were: nursing models, labelling theory, the relationship of psychiatric nursing to medical psychiatry, the risks of depersonalised care, community care, and service cutbacks. Costs and benefits of the e-mail list to individual psychiatric nurses are described and evaluated. It is concluded that e-mail lists have the capacity to contribute to an international psychiatric-nursing identity in a unique and highly personal way. The Internet has many more possibilities for exploitation by psychiatric nurses.
authors.affiliation: St. Bartholomew School of Nursing and Midwifery, Whitechapel, London, U.K.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bowers
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing