Caring for the involuntarily hospitalized adolescent: the issue of power in the nurse-patient relationship.
OBJECTIVE
The power relations between involuntarily hospitalized adolescents and their caregivers from the viewpoint of theory development in nursing and the concept of medicalization.


OBJECTIVE
To contribute to the development of nursing theories that can guide nursing care of involuntarily hospitalized adolescents by examining the power relations between the adolescents and their caregivers.


METHODS
Published literature in medical sociology, and nursing and psychiatric ethics. Nursing and psychiatric literature, in which Michel Foucault's theories are used to explicate the disciplinary power of psychiatry.


CONCLUSIONS
To empower involuntarily hospitalized adolescents nurses must both recognize the inevitable power imbalance and seek guidance from the egalitarian ideals of nursing. Nurses can draw from postmodern thinkers who dismiss the idea that one theory can explain human relationships.
Biering
Pall
P
Institute of Nursing Research, University of Iceland, Reykjavik. pb@hi.is
D000293:Adolescent; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009742:Nursing Theory; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011209:Power, Psychological