TY - JOUR
T1 - Nursing professionalization and welfare state policies
T2 - A critical review of structural factors influencing the development of nursing and the nursing workforce
AU - Gunn, Virginia
AU - Muntaner, Carles
AU - Villeneuve, Michael
AU - Chung, Haejoo
AU - Gea-Sanchez, Montserrat
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - Nursing professionalization is both ongoing and global, being significant not only for the nursing workforce but also for patients and healthcare systems. For this reason, it is important to have an in-depth understanding of this process and the factors that could affect it. This literature review utilizes a welfare state approach to examine macrolevel structural determinants of nursing professionalization, addressing a previously identified gap in this literature, and synthesizes research on the relevance of studying nursing professionalization. The use of a welfare state framework facilitates the understanding that the wider social, economic, and political system exercises significant power over the distribution of resources in a society, providing a glimpse into the complex politics of health and health care. The findings shed light on structural factors outside of nursing, such as country-level education, health, labor market, and gender policies that could impact the process of professionalization and thus could be utilized to strengthen nursing through facilitating increased professionalization levels. Addressing gender inequalities and other structural determinants of nursing professionalization could contribute to achieving health equity and could benefit health systems through enhanced availability, skill-level, and sustainability of nursing human resources, improved and efficient access to care, improved patient outcomes, and cost savings.
AB - Nursing professionalization is both ongoing and global, being significant not only for the nursing workforce but also for patients and healthcare systems. For this reason, it is important to have an in-depth understanding of this process and the factors that could affect it. This literature review utilizes a welfare state approach to examine macrolevel structural determinants of nursing professionalization, addressing a previously identified gap in this literature, and synthesizes research on the relevance of studying nursing professionalization. The use of a welfare state framework facilitates the understanding that the wider social, economic, and political system exercises significant power over the distribution of resources in a society, providing a glimpse into the complex politics of health and health care. The findings shed light on structural factors outside of nursing, such as country-level education, health, labor market, and gender policies that could impact the process of professionalization and thus could be utilized to strengthen nursing through facilitating increased professionalization levels. Addressing gender inequalities and other structural determinants of nursing professionalization could contribute to achieving health equity and could benefit health systems through enhanced availability, skill-level, and sustainability of nursing human resources, improved and efficient access to care, improved patient outcomes, and cost savings.
KW - critical review
KW - gender inequalities
KW - health equity
KW - nursing human resources
KW - nursing professionalization
KW - patient and health system outcomes
KW - politics of health
KW - welfare state
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052908443&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/nin.12263
DO - 10.1111/nin.12263
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30175496
AN - SCOPUS:85052908443
VL - 26
JO - Nursing Inquiry
JF - Nursing Inquiry
SN - 1320-7881
IS - 1
M1 - e12263
ER -