Nursing Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Nursing, including details on health care, hospital staff, professional care.

Conventionalized knowledge: mental health nurses producing clinical knowledge at intershift handovers.

Buus N

University of Southern Denmark, Randers School of Nursing, Randers, Denmark. n_buus@hotmail.com

Mental health nurses routinely hand over clinical knowledge at intershift reports. In the present study, field descriptions from prolonged fieldwork and transcripts of audio recordings of handovers were analysed discursively drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. The analysis identified linguistic and social conventions for handing over clinical knowledge; in particular, differences were identified between non-interactional and interactional handovers. The interactional handovers were relatively more substantial but did also bring forth obvious signs of uncertainty regarding exact clinical situations. Handing over caused a silencing of the least powerful nurses' voices, generated uncertainty, and promoted knowledge about the patients' clinical situation that was not necessarily precise or up-to-date.

Published 19 October 2006 in Issues Ment Health Nurs, 27(10): 1079-96.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Nursing Research Today. All Rights Reserved.