Objective: to analyze the news about Nursing in the Spanish written press in some of the main newspapers in Spain.
Method: a review of the general written press through the analysis of news published in the following newspapers: El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia and ABC, including in their headlines or lead paragraphs the terms “Enfermería” (“Nursing”), “enfermera” (“female nurse”), or “enfermero” (“male nurse”). The Flesch-Szigriszt Index was used in order to assess the linguistic readability of the headlines and lead paragraphs, calculated through the INFLESZ program.
Results: in total, 534 pieces of news were retrieved. By newspapers, 185 (34.64%) pieces of news were collected from La Vanguardia, 165 (30.90%) from El Mundo, 100 (18.73%) from ABC and 84 (15.73%) from El País. Of these articles, 31.46% (n= 168) dealt with “Working conditions”, 13.30% (n= 71) with “Research-University”, 12.17% (n= 65) with “events” and 9.74% (n= 52) with “nursing prescription”. The inclusion of the term “enfermero” (“male nurse”) (n=179) was higher than the use of “enfermera” (“female nurse”) in the articles collected. The level of readability of headlines and lead paragraphs was “somewhat difficult”.
Conclusions: the male term “enfermero” is more usual than the female “enfermera” in the Spanish written press. A third part of the news retrieved dealt with working conditions. Readability was not adequate.