Registered Nurses' work experiences: personal accounts integrated with professional identity.
BACKGROUND
The work context is important for the development of Registered Nurses' skills and identity as professionals, but the work context and organization can also hinder their professional development.


OBJECTIVE
This paper reports a study whose purpose was to understand the meaning of Registered Nurses' narratives of their work experience 5 years after graduation.


METHODS
Data were collected in 2001 from interviews with 16 Registered Nurses 5 years after graduation and analysed using a phenomenological hermeneutic method, influenced by the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur.


RESULTS
Analyses of the narratives resulted in three themes: 'The meaning of caring and protection of patients', 'The meaning of work organization in nurses' work' and 'The implied meaning of using one's individual attributes in one's professional role'. Since the number of nurses participating in the study is small, it is important to re-contextualize the results when transferring them to other contexts.


CONCLUSIONS
There is a complex interrelationship between the health care organization, individual attributes of nurses (including self-esteem) and patient care. Provision of adequate resources and support for nurses' professional and personal development is needed to ensure high quality patient care, and these are political issues.
Fagerberg
Ingegerd
I
Department of Caring and Public Health Sciences, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden. ingegerd.fagerberg@mdh.se
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000592:standards; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D013548:Sweden