Nursing and Humour — An Exploratory Study in Sweden

Nursing and humour both contain variables such as physiological, psychological, social-cultural, spiritual and ones of a developmental characteristic. Most researchers in nursing look to the fact that nursing is both a science and an art. «Humour theorists» uphold the same idea, and maintain that humour contains variable from different scientific fields whilst being an art form. The aim of this study is to describe experiences of humour in health service and nursing, as well as to find a possible link between humour and nursing-variables. The study is explorative and is based on a questionnaire survey. The questions requiring open ended answers have been arranged according to their meaning and category. The study covered three groups: patients, employees within health service and nursing and persons with no connection to health service and nursing. Participant (N = 802) were obtained through consecutive choice during a three week period. The question «What do you see as humour?» gave replies which can be divided into the following six categories; jokes, laughter, macabre humour, situation comedy, pun and unexpected situation. The majority, although somewhat lower in the patient group, felt that humour could be used in health service and nursing. Patients were also asked a supplementary question: «Is humour used in the health service?» Only 4 % of the men and 15 % of the women thought this was the case. A majority thought their own sense of humour to be greater than that of other people. Humour is a positive experience, and can be used as protection. The ethical code expressed by ICN must be applied to humour used in nursing.