Nurses’ Experience of Caring amidst Developments in Welfare Technology in Elderly Care

Abstract

In Norway, the dominant policy understanding of welfare technology sees its development in elderly care as exclusively positive and effective, benefitting both the individual and society at large. However, nurses tend to be viewed as an obstacle to broader use of welfare technology in primary care. This article looks at how nurses experience caring amidst developments in welfare technology in elderly care. The study draws on a psychosocial approach (Olesen, 2020) that enables interpretation of nurses’ expressions of their experiences with caring and welfare technology on the individual level and in the historical, societal and sociocultural context the nurses are situated within. The article illustrates how welfare technology must not be understood one-dimensionally as tools providing specific outcomes and demonstrates how the nurses’ experience of caring amidst developments in welfare technology may be understood as layers of contradictory notions about care, welfare technology and the nursing role.