The dissection of risk: a conceptual analysis

Abstract

Recently, patient safety has gained popularity in the nursing literature. While this topic is used extensively and has been analyzed thoroughly, some of the concepts upon which it relies, such as risk, have remained undertheorized. In fact, despite its considerable use, the term 'risk' has been largely assumed to be inherently neutral - meaning that its definition and discovery is seen as objective and impartial, and that risk avoidance is natural and logical. Such an oversight in evaluation requires that the concept of risk be thoroughly analyzed as it relates to nursing practices, particularly in relation to those practices surrounding bio-political nursing care, such as public health, as well as other more trendy nursing topics, such as patient safety. Thus, this paper applies the Evolutionary Model of concept analysis to explore 'risk', and expose it as one mechanism of maintaining prescribed/ proscribed social practices. Thereby, an analysis of risk results in the definitions and roles of the discipline and profession of nursing expanding from solely being dedicated to patient care, to include, in addition, its functions as a governmental body that unwittingly maintains hegemonic infrastructures.

The culture of fear: expanding the concept of risk in forensic psychiatric nursing

“…Therefore, previously defined social representations of the self are stripped upon entrance into the total institution and are replaced by this internal culture. As the research results suggest, once nurses enter forensic psychiatric environments, they are immersed in a culture of risk (Holmes, 2001(Holmes, , 2005Homes & Federman, 2003;Mason, 2002;Perron, 2008). Over time, nurses developed a new clinical scheme of reference that is rooted in suspicion and a subsequent heightened sense of awareness.…”

“…Currently, the use of the term 'risk' has become increasingly prevalent in the healthcare literature (O'Byrne, 2008). While publications on this topic proliferate, other concepts upon which it relies, such as fear, remain relatively unexplored and undertheorized (Furedi, 2006).…”

We cannot staff for ‘what ifs’: the social organization of rural nurses’ safeguarding work

“…O’Byrne (2008) documented the exponential growth in the patient safety literature in the last decade. Although not conclusive, there is a growing body of research that links the adequacy of nursing staffing levels and nursing leadership with improved patient and nurse outcomes (Wong and Cummings 2007).…”

Uncertain futures: Individual risk and social context in decision-making in cancer screening

“…That is, I bracketed questioning the objectivist or realist stance that risk is a really out there as a characteristic of the natural world, that its nature is therefore independent of human perception. In other epistemological discussions, we might explore constructivist critiques to argue how context or culture is entirely responsible for setting in motion a normative system by which events are organized in a values calculus such that risk may be entirely culture-bound (Malaby 2002; O'Byrne 2008). That said, patients and their providers are clearly bound up in culture: people manage risk information and screening decisions through behavioral mechanisms and social pathways that can be studied, theorized, and intervened upon.…”