Narratives, attribution, & identity construction : A discursive psychological analysis of Swedish assistant nurses’ use of opinion texts to argue against organisational change

Abstract: Background: Most likely given the increase in sick leave absence with mental health issues as the dominant cause, the Swedish Work Environment Agency has released a new regulation regarding the organisational and psychosocial work environment. Shiftwork has been given special attention. Nurses often perform shiftwork and are one of the professions most vulnerable to work stress, ill health and burnout syndrome. Swedish municipalities has therefore initiated an organisational change to implement a schedule model that considers research on work health, but also to solve staffing issues and keep the budget in balance. Assistant nurses have taken to social and traditional media to raise objections to these new schedules.  Objectives: The aim is to examine how discursive practices are used in opinion texts to argue against the organisational change within Swedish municipalities through looking at the narrative structure of the texts and how the nurses’ identities are made relevant in the text.  Methods: A discursive psychological analysis that examines the way language is used to establish the definition of the situation and gain control over the narrative. Data sources included 27 opinion texts from Swedish media newspapers that were publicly available. Results: Three themes were identified: the structure of the narrative, the issue of money and the construction of the nurses. The structure of narrative drew on two linguistic trends: pseudo-academic language and emotive language to describe the situation at hand. In the issue of money they attributed saving money and greed as behind the implementation of the new schedule model, rather than concern over the staff’s welfare. In contrast they constructed themselves as being humble, reasonable and caring about the care receivers. Conclusions: The assistant nurses used language in the opinion texts to take control over the narrative by drawing on aspects relating to health, attributions of motive for the implementation of this organisational change and constructing themselves as being reasonable, humble and caring for the care receivers in contrast to a calculating, greedy employer who cares only about money. The nurses’ working environment is constructed as impacting on the well-being of care-receivers. The nurses position themselves against discourses relating to cost efficiency, rationalisation, and emphasis on administration.