Professional identity: values embedded in meaningful nursing practice

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Abstract
The main research question addressed in this two‐phase descriptive study was ‘What are the values underlying nurses’ professional identity as expressed through what is meaningful in nurses’work?’The first phase was a survey of 767 randomly selected nurses with one, five, and 10 years of experience in nursing, and in the second phase data on work‐meaning were obtained from a convenience sample of six nurses by in‐depth interviews eliciting nurses’stories about providing care to patients. Content analysis of survey‐data revealed that the nurses held both other‐oriented and self‐oriented values, i.e. moral and work values. Human dignity and altruism were the most prominent moral values, whereas the most significant work‐values were intellectual and personal stimulation. The interview‐data, analysed by means of hermeneutic and narrative analysis, revealed a greater diversity in value‐expressions compared to the survey‐data. Altruism, the moral orientation of care, was the overall philosophy, and human dignity appeared as a core value. The nine additional values appeared to be linked to human dignity either by arising from it and/or being aimed at preserving this basic value.