Critical Discourse Analysis in Health Policy and Nursing Practice
Summary
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has emerged as a pivotal approach for unpacking how language both reflects and reproduces power relations in health policy and nursing practice. By examining policy texts, clinical guidelines and professional communications, CDA reveals the underlying assumptions, ideologies and interests that shape decision-making and care delivery. In health policy, CDA highlights how concepts such as vulnerability, risk and responsibility are constructed to justify particular regulatory frameworks and resource allocations. Within nursing practice, it sheds light on professional identities, practitioner–patient relationships and the negotiation of authority within multidisciplinary teams. Across global settings, from mental health legislation in North America to sexual and reproductive health rights in Europe, CDA offers insights into how discursive strategies can reinforce structural inequities or, conversely, support more inclusive and rights-based approaches. The method’s emphasis on linking micro-level textual analysis with macro-level social structures makes it uniquely powerful for both critique and reform, informing efforts to decolonise nursing curricula, challenge stigma and promote equity-centred care.
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Critical Discourse Analysis in Health Policy and Nursing Practice publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in critical discourse analysis in health policy and nursing practice across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): An interdisciplinary method for analysing how language reflects and sustains power relations within social and institutional contexts.
Discourse: A system of language, ideas and practices that constructs particular versions of reality and influences social behaviour.
Vulnerability discourse: A narrative framing that positions certain populations as inherently at risk, often justifying paternalistic interventions.
Othering: The process by which language marks groups as different or alien, reinforcing social boundaries and hierarchies.
Structural determinants: The social, economic and political factors that shape health outcomes beyond individual behaviour or choices.
References
- Migrants in Swedish sexual and reproductive health and rights related policies: a critical discourse analysis. International Journal for Equity in Health (2022).
- Involuntary psychiatric treatment and the erosion of consent: A critical discourse analysis of mental health legislation in British Columbia, Canada. Health An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (2022).
- Common hierarchies, varied rules - the problem of governing community first responders in prehospital care for quality standards: documentary discourse analysis. BMC Health Services Research (2023).
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