Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork
Research has focused on the destructive effects of distress on professionals who work in ethically complex wards such as neonatal intensive units (NICUs). This article examines the accounts of health professionals, including nurses, pediatricians and assistant nurses, of their work at a NICU in Icel...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3521782 2023-05-15T16:50:57+02:00 Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork Einarsdóttir, Jónína 2012-12-12 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3521782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23237628 https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v7i0.19699 en eng Co-Action Publishing http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3521782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23237628 http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v7i0.19699 © 2012 J. Einarsdóttir http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Empirical Study Text 2012 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v7i0.19699 2013-09-04T17:12:18Z Research has focused on the destructive effects of distress on professionals who work in ethically complex wards such as neonatal intensive units (NICUs). This article examines the accounts of health professionals, including nurses, pediatricians and assistant nurses, of their work at a NICU in Iceland. The aim is to understand how health professionals, who work under stressful conditions in an ethically sensitive ward, can counteract the negative sides of work too such a degree that they experience happiness. The collection of data was based on the ethnographic fieldwork, and the methods used were participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The professionals evaluated their wellbeing in line with conventional definitions of happiness. Working with children and opportunities to help others, engage in social relations and experience professional pride contributed to their happiness at work. Nonetheless, they did not dismiss the difficult experiences, and when confronted with these the professionals negotiated their meanings and the goals and priorities of work. In contrast to the findings of much quantitative and survey-based research, the professionals attributed constructive meanings to stress and argued that the positive experiences at work buffered the negative ones. Research on happiness would benefit from multifaceted methodological and theoretical perspectives. Thanks to its openness to the unforeseen, controversial, contradictory, and ambiguous aspects of human life, ethnography can contribute to happiness research and research on job satisfaction. Text Iceland PubMed Central (PMC) International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being 7 1 19699 |
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Empirical Study Einarsdóttir, Jónína Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
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Empirical Study |
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Research has focused on the destructive effects of distress on professionals who work in ethically complex wards such as neonatal intensive units (NICUs). This article examines the accounts of health professionals, including nurses, pediatricians and assistant nurses, of their work at a NICU in Iceland. The aim is to understand how health professionals, who work under stressful conditions in an ethically sensitive ward, can counteract the negative sides of work too such a degree that they experience happiness. The collection of data was based on the ethnographic fieldwork, and the methods used were participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The professionals evaluated their wellbeing in line with conventional definitions of happiness. Working with children and opportunities to help others, engage in social relations and experience professional pride contributed to their happiness at work. Nonetheless, they did not dismiss the difficult experiences, and when confronted with these the professionals negotiated their meanings and the goals and priorities of work. In contrast to the findings of much quantitative and survey-based research, the professionals attributed constructive meanings to stress and argued that the positive experiences at work buffered the negative ones. Research on happiness would benefit from multifaceted methodological and theoretical perspectives. Thanks to its openness to the unforeseen, controversial, contradictory, and ambiguous aspects of human life, ethnography can contribute to happiness research and research on job satisfaction. |
format |
Text |
author |
Einarsdóttir, Jónína |
author_facet |
Einarsdóttir, Jónína |
author_sort |
Einarsdóttir, Jónína |
title |
Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
title_short |
Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
title_full |
Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
title_fullStr |
Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
title_full_unstemmed |
Happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: Merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
title_sort |
happiness in the neonatal intensive care unit: merits of ethnographic fieldwork |
publisher |
Co-Action Publishing |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3521782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23237628 https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v7i0.19699 |
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Iceland |
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Iceland |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3521782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23237628 http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v7i0.19699 |
op_rights |
© 2012 J. Einarsdóttir http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v7i0.19699 |
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International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being |
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7 |
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1 |
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19699 |
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