Abstract:
This research identified and explored the various responses often women
Registered Nurses displaced from full-time elnployment as staff nurses in general hospitals
in southern Ontario. These nurses were among the hundreds in Ontario who were
displaced between October 1991 and October 1995 as a result of organizational
downsizing and other health care reform initiatives. The purpose ofthis research was to
document tIle responses of nurses to job displacement, and how that experience impacted
on a nurse's professional identity and her understanding of the nature and utilization of
nursing labour.
This study incorporated techniques consistent with the principles of naturalistic
inquiry and the narrative tradition. A purposive sample was drawn from the Health Sector
Training and Adjustment Program database. Data collection and analysis was a three-step
process wherein the data collection in each step was informed by the data analysis in the
preceding step. The main technique used for qualitative data collection was
semistructured, individual and group interviews.
Emerging from the data was a rich and textured story ofhow job displacement
disrupted the meaningful connections nurses had with their work. In making meaning of
this change, displaced nurses journeyed along a three-step path toward labour adjustment.
Structural analysis was the interpretive lens used to view the historical, sociopolitical and
ideological forces which constrained the choices reasonably available to displaced nurses
while Kelly's personal construct theory was the lens used to view the process of making
choices and reconstruing their professional identity.
