History of Public Health Nursing in Spain and the International Context

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the international factors that influenced the professionalisation of public health nursing in Spain. The sources consulted included the archives of the League of Nations, the World Health Organisation and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as articles and reports drawn up by health authorities, public health doctors and nurses. The results show that Rockefeller Foundation and international European organisations contributed to the professionalisation of public health nursing in Spain, but that this process was interrupted by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship. The Francoist regime rebuffed the efforts made by national and international institutions, reoriented health policies deploying nurses as an ideological vehicle and exacerbated the gender gap. Whereas public health nursing became increasingly consolidated in other countries over the course of the twentieth century, the field of nursing suffered a significant deterioration in Spain, where emphasis was placed on an auxiliary role carried out almost exclusively in hospitals, heightening the discipline’s isolation and hindering its professionalisation.