“You’re Just a Mental Health Nurse”: Nurses’ Experiences of Associative Stigma When Accessing Physical Health Care for Their Patients

Abstract

In this article, we present the results of an interpretive phenomenology looking at mental health nurses’ experiences of associative stigma when accessing physical health care for their patients. Our results illustrate the multifaceted dynamics of stigma in the context of mental health nursing and the direct impacts stigmatizing behaviors have on mental health nurses and patients alike, including an impeded access to health care services, loss of social status and personhood, and the internalization of stigma. They also highlight how nurses resist to stigma and how they help their patients cope with stigmatization.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the nursing administration at Royal Ottawa Health Care Group for supporting nurse-led research.

Data availability statement

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.