Nurses' Perceptions of Themselves, Cancer Nurses, Typical, Ideal and Cancer Patients

The Activity Vector Analysis was administered to four independent samples of hospital staff nurses (40 working on surgical floors, 40 on medical floors, 10 cancer specialists, and 10 in an outpatient department) to investigate differences in how nurses perceived themselves versus the type of nurse who works best with cancer patients, as well as differences in the perceptions of typical hospital patients, ideal patients, and cancer patients. Highly congruent stereotype clusters for the perception of the typical patient and cancer patient were found along with two less congruent stereotype clusters of the ideal patient and a stereotype cluster of perceptions of the cancer nurse. Both typical patients and typical cancer patients were seen as significantly below average in terms of their potential for action and were perceived as exercising less foresight, planning ability, moral judgment, and ethical conduct than nurses.