Emotionsarbete och samarbete mellan läkare, sjuksköterskor och undersköterskor på akutmottagningar

Abstract

This research examines cooperation between doctors, nurses and assistant nurses in five Swedish emergency departments, using emotion management to identify power and status dynamics. Building on theories from the field of sociology of emotions, and using qualitative interviews as method, analysis of stories from five groups and five individuals unveils differences in the use of prescribed, presentational and philanthropic emotion labour. The re-sults show 1) how doctors reproduce their power and status through emo-tional labour, but hence accumulate excess status which causes emotional and social imbalance, 2) that nurses are bound to the organization as a base for power and status, which causes them stress but also prevents them from gaining more power and status, and 3) that assistant nurses show flexibility in how they do emotional labour, which potentially enables them to use em-pathy in a more elaborate way. Assistant nurses also seem to avoid status loss by not comparing themselves to the other two professions. This knowledge may be used to avoid certain work environment risks and to en-hance work-relations within health care. Suggestions regarding this are pre-sented in the discussion.