No Cover Image

Journal article 384 views 245 downloads

How we say what we do and why it is important: An idiosyncratic analysis of mental health nursing identity on social media

Stephen Mckenna-Lawson Orcid Logo

International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, Volume: 31, Issue: 3, Pages: 708 - 721

Swansea University Author: Stephen Mckenna-Lawson Orcid Logo

  • 59671.VOR.pdf

    PDF | Version of Record

    This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

    Download (272.59KB)

Check full text

DOI (Published version): 10.1111/inm.12991

Abstract

This paper is the culmination of a qualitative research project into mental health nursing (MHN) identity via exploration of a social media campaign organized in 2018 by the UK Mental Health Nurses Association. Through engagement with this campaign and a multimethod approach, this paper proposes a n...

Full description

Published in: International Journal of Mental Health Nursing
ISSN: 1445-8330 1447-0349
Published: Wiley 2022
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa59671
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Abstract: This paper is the culmination of a qualitative research project into mental health nursing (MHN) identity via exploration of a social media campaign organized in 2018 by the UK Mental Health Nurses Association. Through engagement with this campaign and a multimethod approach, this paper proposes a new and novel heuristic framework for exploring MHN identity holistically, through what is termed the 6Ps of MHN identity. The 6Ps – encompassing the professional, personal, practical, proximal, philosophical, and political aspects of identity – were previously shared with members of the MHN research community at both the 2019 and 2020 proceedings of the International Mental Health Nursing Research Conference. To examine the identity expressed in the social media campaign, all contributions by nurses were amalgamated into one ‘text’ for analysis. When this text was examined, the focus was the particular language used by MHNs. This granular analysis concentrated on word choice, form, and frequency as the constituent aspects of meaning. Even when it was necessary to examine larger grammatical units, the key nouns – grammatical objects and subjects – were the primary focus of analysis. Following this, the author – a mental health nurse themselves – applied their personal understanding of the field of practice to the text to arrive at an understanding of its contents. This approach is the first in the field of MHN identity research to examine the profession’s identity as expressed by members on social media, as well as the linguistic form of that expression.
Item Description: This work was completed independently, prior to the author’s current affiliation to Swansea University, when they were working clinically in mental health services in London.
Keywords: hermeneutics, language, mental health, mental health nursing, social media
College: Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Funders: No financial support was given to this piece of research.
Issue: 3
Start Page: 708
End Page: 721