From Subversion to Hard-Wiring Equity: A Discourse Analysis of Nurses' Equity-Promoting Practices in Emergency Departments

ANS Adv Nurs Sci. 2023 Nov 20. doi: 10.1097/ANS.0000000000000517. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Nursing has articulated a shared commitment to equity in response to inequities in health and health care; however, understandings of how nurses enact equity are needed to uphold this professional mandate. This Foucauldian discourse analysis examined how nurses' equity-promoting practices are shaped by dominant discourses within the emergency department and illustrated that within this institutional context that constrained equity, nurses engaged in equity-promoting practices through subversion of discursive power. This study illustrates the need for embedding equity discourses within health care systems and ensuring meaningful supports for nurses in enacting equity-promoting practices within the emergency department setting.