Abstract

Harnessing Emotion to Inform Nursing Practice

Background

Studies in neuroscience (Immordino -Yang and Damassio, 2007) have shown that effective judgement requires emotion to provide a guiding ‘rudder’ revealing knowing to be a feeling state. Emotional labour as a central feature of nursing practice is well documented (Theodosius, 2008). Theorists have identified emotions as tools for reflection (Bradbury-Jones et al. 2009) but this area of knowledge is preoccupied with self-awareness and therefore underdeveloped.

Aim
This paper presents evidence of the impact of a new framework which harnesses emotion to inform nursing practice.

Method
In phase one thirty-three nurses across five specialist areas talked exhaustively about the emotions they experienced while immersed in practice and the causes of these emotions. The data was collected in a London teaching hospital and in three community NHS trusts in the East Midlands of England. Following this, in a second phase, six nurses (two supervisors and four supervisees) in a London Teaching Hospital who had not taken part in the first part of the research talked about their experience after two months and four months of using a framework consisting of seven concepts identified in the first research phase. In both phases the interviews were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim and the data analysed using Grounded Theory Method.

Results
Seven core emotional concepts were found to have commonality across practice forming an ‘emotion map’. The ‘emotion framework’ was shown to increase self-awareness, inform and empower practice.

Conclusion
The framework opens up a new frontier in learning for which the details of an experience are the outcome of reflection on emotion rather than the reverse. The framework demonstrated ‘organic’ properties which permit a harnessing of a sense of salience that is central to clinical judgement in nursing. Increased credence has been given to personal knowledge and intuition in nursing practice.