Nurses' orientations to change: debunking the "resistant to change" myth

In 1996, a contemporary oral history of public health nursing in Southwestern Ontario was undertaken. The study period was from 1980 to 1996, a time of tumultuous change in public health in Ontario. Interviews with 14 staff-level public health nurses were the primary data source and, where possible, factual data were corroborated through written documentation such as newspaper accounts. Major findings related to the changing scope and practice of public health nursing have been reported elsewhere. The findings reported in this article focus on nurses' experiences of change. Despite common myths that nurses are resistant to change, six different orientations to change were identified. Critical approval, insidious assimilation, and wounded acquiescence were three ways in which nurses accepted change. Judicious circumvention and constructive opposition described both resistance to control and resistance to changes that most often jeopardized client health from the nurses' perspectives. Finally, the findings included evidence that nurses sometimes initiated change through visionary transformation. Acknowledging nurses' various orientations to change is important in neutralizing the controlling and powerful myth that nurses are "simply resistant to change."