Nursing and the barriers to sustainable health care: a literature review

Abstract

Objectives: global warming poses a serious threat to human health, yet healthcare organisations and staff have been relatively slow to engage with sustainable healthcare practices. This review of the literature seeks to frame what is already known about nurses and their views on global warming and sustainable health care.

Design: 11 primary research articles were sourced from a search of five mainstream databases. These articles were subject to a basic thematic analysis.

Results: six themes were identified: sustainability, endemic blindness to global issues, environmental numbness, social norms, priority assigned to sustainability, and psychology of responsibility and blame.

Conclusion: from the literature reviewed, there are a number of social, cultural and psychological barriers that have led to widespread inaction. This article recommends further research to understand the psychological barriers in more depth as this is a poorly understood area.

Keywords: Global warming; Literature review; Nursing; Sustainable health care.