In this episode of Correctional Nursing Today Karen Marchand-Singleton discusses her research involving nurse perceptions of correctional health care. Karen performed this research as part of her master’s degree program and hopes to expand her sample in future research. Karen’s entry into correctional practice started when her son, who has hemophilia, was detained at a local jail. She had not been exposed to correctional nursing before and was unsure of the medical treatment her son would be receiving. She took a position at a nearby jail to find out and discovered she loved the specialty.

As a nurse manager at that same facility, Karen found it difficult to recruit nurses into the correctional setting. This led her to pursue this research topic to find out what the perception was of correctional nursing in the healthcare community. Her research sample was based on her South Carolina locale where she did live interviews with 20 nurses. These nurses had backgrounds in acute care, home care, hospice, and corrections. Her structured interview involved 10 questions about their understanding and exposure to correctional nursing.

Her results indicate that we have a ways to go to improve the awareness and image of correctional nursing. Few study participants had a clear understanding of the specialty and only one had been exposed to the field during initial schooling. Her findings indicate a need for more dialog in the general nursing community about correctional nursing practice. Correctional nurses need to interact with nurses outside the specialty at general conferences and become a part of the larger nursing community.

Do you think the correctional nursing specialty is invisible? Share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.