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Poor wee souls and fraggle rock: The visceral humor of nurse-peers in a non-accomplishment setting

  • May Arnott McCreaddie

    May Arnott McCreaddie is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at Fatima College of Health Sciences, Institute of Applied Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She is a nurse with BA and masters’ degree in Education (University of Stirling) and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Strathclyde. Her research interests are humor in healthcare interactions, problematic interactions, and healthcare complaints.

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Published/Copyright: April 2, 2016

Abstract

This paper reports the nurse-peer interactions of a negative case; a Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) working with female drug users in the area of sexual and reproductive health – derived from a qualitative constructivist grounded theory study looking at spontaneous humor in Clinical Nurse Specialist – patient interactions and their respective peer groups. Spontaneous humor in nurse-peer interactions is reviewed and compared and contrasted with those observed in the CNS-patient interactions. A ninety-minute follow-up interview and ten hours of field note observations of the interactions of nurse-patients and nurse-peers was analyzed using an interpretative and illustrative framework following a constant comparison approach. A specific kind of humor (harsh humor) characterized the negative case and enhanced CNS-patient interactions. In nurse-peer interactions, this visceral humor was sometimes recreational; filling downtime between non-attending patients and building team rapport. However, nurse-peer humor also had a more serious import acting as a release: a way of venting emotions and diluting the daily tragedy, making palatable what is ultimately unpalatable while still retaining a sense of self-worth. Further study of humor in non-accomplishment settings may provide useful insights into the potential for humor to build staff resilience and enhance therapeutic uses of humor in healthcare interactions.

About the author

May Arnott McCreaddie

May Arnott McCreaddie is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at Fatima College of Health Sciences, Institute of Applied Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She is a nurse with BA and masters’ degree in Education (University of Stirling) and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Strathclyde. Her research interests are humor in healthcare interactions, problematic interactions, and healthcare complaints.

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Published Online: 2016-4-2
Published in Print: 2016-5-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

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