Nurses' Experience of Peacebuilding: International Perspectives

Nursing is a moral endeavor that embodies humanitarian responses to human suffering. Nurses understand the impact of direct and indirect violence on the health of individuals and communities around the world. The intersections of health, justice, caring, and peace are important considerations for the profession.

This qualitative research study, in the interpretive phenomenology tradition, describes the experience of peacebuilding from the perspective of eight nurses with experience living and working in low-resource international settings.

Attributes of peacebuilding included fostering authentic human relationships that contribute to community engagement, nurturing holistic human kindness with humility, and experiencing the personal costs of peacebuilding amid violence. Peacebuilding practices included mediating conflict rooted in direct and indirect violence, accompanying communities toward resilience, and building capacity through teaching and learning.

This study represents an introduction to the considerations of how peacebuilding is integral to nursing research, theory, and practice and provides the basis for further studies.