From the perception of powerlessness to the fight for justice in healthcare

The search for communicative settings for reflection concerning the exercise and practice of nursing based on bioethical frameworks sought to comprehend how participant nurses interpret the reality of their praxis vis-à-vis the observance of justice. The focal group technique was used for data collection and the latter was analyzed using Grounded Theory. Three phenomena were identified: conceptualizing a sense of justice; feeling powerless in living with inequities/injustice; and moving towards the fight for justice. From the inter-relation of such phenomena, the core categories emerged, namely constructing mechanisms to overcome injustice and inequities which undermine quality in nursing care, and the experience of recently-graduated nurses in a public hospital in the interior of São Paulo State. Focal group strategy proved to be highly adequate for achieving the proposed objectives, and Grounded Theory made it possible to assess the movement undertaken by the nurses in this experience.