Original scientific paper
»Angels of Mercy« – Attitudes of Social Groups towards Nurses
Miroslav Mastilica
; Faculty of Medicine, Zagreb
Abstract
Studies conducted in medical sociology have shown that attitudes towards health, disease, medicine and health care are one of the factors which influence health behaviour Most of the studies on the utilization of health care have focused on attitudes towards physicians while only a few studies dealt with attitudes towards nurses. The importance of nurses’ professional role as well as their public images are well described in foreign especially American literature. Two basic role of nurses are that she is the »mother surrogate« and "healer. The population in general is more concerned with the female, emotional characteristic of the nurse's profession than with her technical-professional role, i. e. people in relation to nurses prefer care rather than cure.
The aim of the research the results of which are presented in this paper, was partly to answer the questions about the public image of nurses in our society Attitudes towards nurses were measured by a set of statements of which five positive and five were negative characteristics of nurses. The respondents, stratified as to social groups, had to answer whether they agree or do not agree with the mentioned statements. The research was carried out by using structured questionnaire on a random stratified sample (n=383) of active population of the city of Zagreb. The results show that the respondents are somewhat more critical when they are assessing positive characteristic of nurses and less critical when assessing the negative ones. In relation to social groups, the study has shown that the most positive attitudes towards nurses were expressed by workers, while the most negative opinions were expressed by administrative workers and managers, who in most part do not agree with the positive statements and most of all the examined groups accept the negative statements about nurses. Women and younger respondents are more critical in assessing the attitudes towards nurses than men and older respondents. It has also been noticed that »higher« occupational groups, as well as those who are better from »lower« occupational groups and with lower income.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
155325
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1990.
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