Nursing resistance as ethical action: literature review.
BACKGROUND
Much has been written about nursing as a predominantly female profession whose members display passivity, submission, obedience and powerlessness. Alternatively, some authors have presented evidence of nurses' capacity to exercise power, revealing the possible relationship between powerlessness and ethical compromise. Thus, empowerment strategies for nurses can yield ethical action.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this paper is to use analysis of the literature to demonstrate how the actions and responses of nurses to ethical concerns are examples of nurses exercising power.


METHODS
Empirical studies published in the nursing literature between 1990 and 2003 have been analysed to illustrate how nurses' actions of resistance can ensure that moral values are realized in practice. Foucauldian notions of power relations and feminist ethics provide the theoretical framework.


CONCLUSIONS
Nurses were found to resist in situations where they experienced moral conflicts in relation to the actions of health professionals; however, instances were cited where they did not. Consequently, strategies for nursing education and management are proposed to increase nurses' understanding of the potential acts of resistance that they could employ in situations of moral conflict or concern.
Peter
Elizabeth
E
Joint Centre for Bioethics, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. elizabeth.peter@utoronto.ca
Lunardi
Valeria Lerch
VL
Macfarlane
Amy
A
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D019513:Feminism; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D024802:Nurse's Role; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011364:Professional Practice / Q000941:ethics*