Media images of physicians and nurses in the United States

Portrayal of Nurses in Advertisements in Medical and Nursing Journals

“…Of the 428 nurses in our sample, 187 wore white uniforms, 53 wore white caps, and 13 had starched white, long-sleeved uniforms. The findings of our study support those of Krantzler (1986) who found the dominant symbol is still the white uniform, but that a shift has occurred from uniform to professional wardrobe, with diversity of styles approximating everyday clothing. That shift was reflected in our findings of the nurses in street clothes and business attire.…”

“…According to 1989 figures (American Nurses' Association, 1989a), men comprise 3.3 percent of nurses, whereas in our study, 6.31 percent of the nurses in the ads were men. The shift in the use of symbols observed in the ads we analyzed corroborates the work of Krantzler (1986). Nurses were likely to be pictured in white lab coats with prominently displayed stethoscopes.…”

“…These researchers describe portrayals of women as decorations or ornaments in advertisements, rather than participants, similar to Goffman's "licensed withdrawal." The uniform symbols of Krantzler (1986) were utilized, particularly the white lab coat and stethoscope. The topical categories for ads (job ads, product, malpractice, prescription drugs) came from Thompson's study of sex bias in drug advertising (1979).…”

“…The topical categories for ads (job ads, product, malpractice, prescription drugs) came from Thompson's study of sex bias in drug advertising (1979). Role portrayals were drawn from the work of Bretl and Cantor (1988) and Sullivan and O'Connor (1988) whose studies were designed to examine portrayals of men and women in television and magazine advertising. Finally, we were guided in construction of categories by the work of Williamson, Karp, Dalphin and Gary (1982) on content analysis as a research method.…”

“…This study was designed as a followup to our previous effort to examine the content of advertisements in medical journals to determine if the images of women are different from those of men, when women are portrayed as consumers and as providers of health care (Hawkins & Aber, 1988). Only one study examined the image of nurses in the advertisements appearing in nursing and medical journals (Krantzler, 1986). In this study, the researcher compared the portrayals of nurses and physicians in one month of one medical journal in 1965 and 1982 and one nursingjournal for one month in 1952 and 1982.…”