Ethnography in Nursing

Introduction & Ethnography studies the cultures including its habits, traditions, belief system and the life style of people. Much attention has been paid to ethnographic studies as a research method by medical and nursing researchers. It examines beliefs and healthy behavior which affect the process of illnesses as well as the individual's health in the specific culture. This review article was intended to survey the ethnography as a qualitative research method with emphasis on its implication in nursing. In this study, a comprehensive review of published literatures in different Iranian and international databases including Iran Medex, Pub Med, Ovid, ProQuest, and Elsevier was searched using keywords such as ethnography, the study of culture, and ethno nursing were searched without any limitation for date of published literature. Available studies showed that ethnography may focus on the whole culture or a section of it. Therefore, there are different schools of ethnography in this regard. There are two Emic and Ethic approaches in ethnography according on which researcher to be party of participants or to be out of them. According to the Ethic view, researchers attempt to reveal the latent knowledge of their culture, but, in the Ethic view, the researcher presents the experiences of a specific culture. Nursing theorists apply ethno-nursing term in order to study the views, beliefs, behaviors and actions of native individuals for nursing practice. Ethnography as a research method can be considered by nurses for studying applicable concepts in the field of nursing. Patient's behaviors and their response during, illness were affected by their culture which can be examined using an ethnography research design.