Negotiating Status and Identity Tensions in Healthcare Team Interactions: An Exploration of Nurse Role Dialectics

Abstract

As central figures in the healthcare team, nurses encounter a wide range of role expectations that increasingly require heightened interpersonal communication skills. Role dialectics, a construct integrating role theory and relational dialectics scholarship, is introduced to highlight the complexities of healthcare team communication and nurse professionalism. Specifically, researchers examined the role contradictions that emerged in team communication and the discursive processes by which nurses manage role tensions. Analysis of interview transcripts with 50 healthcare workers revealed three role dialectics that reflect over-arching issues of hierarchy, status, and professional identity that challenge nurses' communication in the healthcare team. Findings also identified the specific communication strategies nurses use to manage the role contradictions created in team interactions. Pragmatic conclusions are drawn regarding the evolving role of nurses in healthcare teams.

Keywords:

• Roles
• Dialectics
• Nursing
• Healthcare Teams
• Professionalism

Notes

Julie Apker is Assistant Professor and Kathleen M. Propp is Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University where Wendy S. Zabava Ford is Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Correspondence to: Julie Apker, School of Communication, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5318, USA. [email protected]. This project was supported by a grant from Bronson Healthcare Group, Kalamazoo, Michigan. We thank Chris Groscurth, Stephanie Lagalo, Michele Serbenski Pelletier, and Nancy Wallace for assistance in data collection. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, New Orleans, 2004.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wendy S. Zabava Ford

Julie Apker is Assistant Professor and Kathleen M. Propp is Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University where Wendy S. Zabava Ford is Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Correspondence to: Julie Apker, School of Communication, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5318, USA. [email protected]. This project was supported by a grant from Bronson Healthcare Group, Kalamazoo, Michigan. We thank Chris Groscurth, Stephanie Lagalo, Michele Serbenski Pelletier, and Nancy Wallace for assistance in data collection. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, New Orleans, 2004.