Technology and communication in hospital care for chronically ill patients from the Habermasian perspective

Abstract

The objectives of the study were to describe situations involving instrumental and communicative actions that take place in nursing and to explore the difficulties in communicative action. It was an ethnographic study conducted among nurses from two large hospitals in Spain and Portugal. Data collection took place through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. It was then followed up by a survey. A discourse analysis and quantitative analysis were performed (on the survey). The nurses' work consisted mainly of instrumental actions. Among the social actions, those of a strategic type predominate, whereas communicative actions are scarce and non-specific. It was noted that difficulties in communicative actions were linked to "New Management" and "Encoded Knowledge". Nursing requires a more balanced distribution between the time dedicated to technology and communication. The difficulties involved in communicative action appear to coincide with Habermasian systems, although renewed forms are adopted.