6533b855fe1ef96bd12b0fe8

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Evolution of nurses' social representation of hospital hygiene: From training to practice

subject

description

Nurses' social representations of hospital hygiene were analyzed. A cross-sectional method was used to compare and analyze the social representations of the concept domain of "hospital hygiene" across three independent groups of participants (N=744). The groups included: (a) professional nurses (N=114); (b) student nurses (N=315); and (c) psychology students (N=315). Comparisons were drawn: (a) between professionals and students; and (b) between student nurse cohorts at three different levels (years) of training. The results show an ongoing evolution of the social representations of hospital hygiene during training and in the course of professional practice. The representation of hospital hygiene is structured around the element "cleanliness" at the beginning of training and around "asepsis" at the end of training. An increased specialization of vocabulary pertaining specifically to hospital hygiene is also observed. A comparative analysis between students and professionals shows a lower number of common lexical associations in the student group. A discussion of how these results are related to other research in cognitive ergonomics and the analyses of dialogues involving professional interactions between experts and novices is provided. Keywords: Social representations, hygiene, health, nosocomial infections, word association task, lexical analysis, similarity analysis.