"Til menneskehetens beste" : mot vitenskapsbasert sykepleie : et historisk internasjonalt perspektiv på utviklingen av mellomkrigstidens sykepleie

Abstract

At the International Nursing Congress in Montreal in 1929 American nursing leaders argued that nursing had to be founded on scientific knowledge. Science and nursing was eagerly discussed during the whole inter-war period. And the essential question was if nursing should be promoted as a moral-based practice or as a profession based on science. This article will discuss why science became such a significant topic in the development of nursing in the period between the two world wars. It is maintained that the arguments for science reflected professional ambitions, but also a strong wish to improve nursing including the education of nurses. It is further argued that the role of science and the impact it had on the development of nursing was due to various forces of both external and internal character. This was revealed in several ways, e.g. in the curriculum prepared by the Committee on Education of the International Council of Nurses in 1930. The article is based on one of the chapters in the thesis "Bergljot Larsson and modern nursing" (2002). In this connection both primary sources and secondary sources about this specific topic have been used in the existing discussions and analyses.