Disability Disclosure and Discrimination

Juliana KorzonFaculty of Health

The research

Fit to practice. What is the experience of registered nurses who become disabled during the course of their careers?

Methodology and Method

»Qualitative, narrative methodology (Somers, 1994)

»Abductive approach – social constructionist (Blaikie, 2010)

»Semi structured interviews»Narrative analysis

Participant profiles

Seven participants- all female Two Pacific nurses, one Maori and four

Caucasian. All employed (most full time) Nursing educator, specialist practitioner,

primary care nursing, nursing advisor, nursing manager, hospital based staff nurse.

Participants-impairments included

Polyarthritis, Fibromyalgia syndrome, Head injury, Multiple sclerosis, Back injury, Anxiety and panic attacks,Hepatitis C , DepressionPost natal psychosis

Disability

• Identification of disability

•Medical vs Social model (Oliver, 1983)

Disclosure

• Identity Spread• Silencing• Passing• Hidden and/or Invisible

Disabilities

Discrimination

• Barriers - attitudinal and physical• Facilitators -understanding and

advocating• Affirmative Model- accepting of

difference

For clinicians to empathically recognise and clinically respond to disability in their patients, they need to begin by recognising and responding to disability within themselves and within their own ranks, rather than continuing to uphold impossible ideals of health and normalcy.

(Garden, 2010, p. 71)

Thank youComments or

Questions?

ReferencesBlaikie, N. (2010). Designing social research: The logic of

anticipation (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.Garden, R. (2010). Disability and narrative: new directions for

medicine and the medical humanities. Medical Humanities, doi:10.1136/jmh.2010.004143.

Oliver, M. (1983). Social work with disabled people. London: Macmillan.

Somers, R. (1994) .The narrative construction of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory and Society, 23, 605–649.