Journal of Nursing & Care

Nursing as a Profession in Brazil: Sociological Contributions

Abstract

Adriana Lima Pimenta, Maria de Lourdes de Souza* and Flavia Regina de Souza Ramos

Aim: The objective was to analyze the content of Nursing Professional Practice Law and compare it to the content of papers addressing professional identity published in Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem.

Methods: Bibliographic and documental searches were conducted using qualitative analysis grounded on Eliot Freidson’s Sociology of Professions. The corpus consisted of texts published between 1983 and 2012, and Brazilian Legal Documents.

Results: The thematic category "Contradictions of the nursing profession" emerged. A weakness of the professional project was identified, which is based on the fragmentation of work. This reductionist approach legitimizes the maintenance of nursing divided into professional and non-professional workers, restricting the practice of nurses.

Conclusion: The complexity of care requires social responsibility to construct a professional project that provides scientific, ethical, philosophical and political foundations to workers to support their practice.