ABSTRACT

Oulu University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in Nursing and Health Care, Mental Healthcare ______________________________________________________________________ Author: Hanna-Riikka Hautamäki Title of thesis: Psychiatric nursing in Finnish nursing magazines 1922-1939 Supervisors: Liisa Kiviniemi and Sirpa Tölli Term and year when the thesis was submitted: Spring 2014 Number of pages: 53 +13 ______________________________________________________________________

The purpose of the study was to examine psychiatric nursing in Finnish nursing magazines from 1920´s to 1930’s. The aim of the study was to portray working conditions of nursing in mental hospitals, examine was the power of defining the contents of psychiatric nursing divided to nurses and what were the topics related to psychiatric nursing discussed in nursing magazines. The study was a qualitative historical research. Its main source was 60 Finnish nursing magazines from 1922 to 1939.

The results show that nursing in mental hospitals was physically and mentally exhausting. Working conditions were poorly arranged – taking care of patients included cleaning the hospital, work safety was in its minimum and shifts long. In addition, nurses typically lived in hospitals. Based on Finnish nursing magazines the power of defining psychiatric nursing’s contents were on the hands of doctors, National Institute for Health and Welfare and the ecclesiastical facets – not on the hands of nurses themselves. Nevertheless, it was to be read between the lines that nurses did have their own ambitions regarding psychiatric nursing.

The six main topics related to psychiatric nursing discussed in the magazines were: 1) the education of nurses (the nursing education should include more theoretical and practical psychiatric nursing), 2) the attributes of a proper psychiatric nurse (discreet behavior was essential), 3) the working culture of nurses (despite the disciplined impression of nursing of the time nurses did have capacity for relaxation), 4) the mental hospitals as a nursing environment (it was noted how Finnish hospitals were ascetic in comparison to other European hospitals and how that effected patients in a degenerative manner), 5) psychiatric nursing’s relation to Finnish society (nation’s understanding of mental illnesses was deemed as old-fashioned and brutal, though nursing agreed with eugenics-based sterilizations in prevention of mental illnesses) and 6) the contents of psychiatric nursing (psychiatric nursing was not mere guarding of patients anymore – it was assertive, profound understanding of the human mind). ______________________________________________________________________ Keywords: history, Finnish nursing, psychiatric nursing, eugenics