Visibility and Invisibility of Nurses in Hospital Settings: An Analysis Based on the Sociologies of Ignorance and of Absences

Imbued with historical, cultural, and social aspects, nurses' visibility and invisibility have often been studied in terms of their work. Based on the sociology of ignorance and the sociology of absences, our aim in this article is to shed light on how organizational processes can actively produce nurses' visibility or invisibility on care units. To this end, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study with 15 nurses in three tertiary care hospitals that are part of a large health and social services center in Quebec, Canada. The data collected through semi-structured interviews, nonparticipatory observations, and analyses of patient records were subjected to thematic analysis. Three themes were identified from the analysis: the context of nurses' visibility, the impact of organizational structure on nurses' visibility and invisibility, and visibility associated with the persistence of the traditional image of the nurse. Hence, these themes help illustrate how organizational processes favor visibility and invisibility, and the instrumentalization of nurses. This is important to highlight these processes and denounce them so that the legitimacy of nurses' epistemic and political positions in healthcare settings is better considered.