[Nursing in prison: inmates as patients]

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Psychodynamics of Work
• Correctional Healthcare

Context:

• Focuses on nursing practices within a Canadian penitentiary.
• Utilizes data from Psychodynamics of Work research and literature review.
• Includes insights from five nurses (three male, two female) through focus groups.

Purpose:

• To describe nursing practices in a Canadian prison setting.
• To identify sources of pleasure and suffering for nurses in this environment.
• To analyze the unique challenges and rewards of correctional nursing.

Summary:

• Nurses experience pleasure from the scope of practice, autonomy, collaboration with physicians, humanitarian care, and recognition.
• Sources of suffering include the gap between rehabilitation ideals and reality, the care-safety paradox, isolation, fear of lawsuits, and constant observation.
• Data reveals dissociation between patient and inmate identities, fear of healthcare identity contamination, and feelings of plenitude and sublimation.

Impact:

• Highlights the inherent tension between security and care in correctional nursing.
• Discusses the dissociation between patient and inmate roles.
• Examines the potential contamination of nursing identity within the prison context.