Informal Power in the Intermediary Position: The Processes by Which Nurses Contribute to Health Care Disparities

• In Event: 3571 - Sociological Research and the Reduction of Health Inequalities

Abstract

Research in social psychology and medical sociology shows that physicians hold similar unconscious biases about racial/ethnic minorities as others in society; however, information on whether and what biases nurses hold about patients is largely absent in the literature. Rarely are nurses the subject of studies on bias in health care; yet, nurses generally see patients more frequently and have more sustained interactions with patients than physicians. Qualitative data from a pilot study indicate that: nurses’ perceive their influence on physicians’ perceptions of patients to be great, nurses (who hold informal power) use various strategies to influence a physicians’ perception of a patient (negatively or positively, intentionally or unintentionally), and nurses report that some of their nursing colleagues (and physicians) contribute in subtle ways to disparities in health care. To effectively create strategies for mitigating bias, it is important to know who should be the targets of interventions and the process by which bias uniquely manifest itself among different groups of health professionals (e.g., physicians, nurses, and receptionists) who provide services to patients.

Author

• Amy Irby-Shasanmi