Professional Responsibility Governed by a Risk‐Oriented Care Logic: Nursing Staff's Experiences of Caring for Persons With Anorexia Nervosa in General Psychiatric Inpatient Care

ABSTRACT

Mental health nursing in inpatient psychiatry is shaped by control and standardisation, yet little is known about how these conditions are sustained in everyday care for persons with anorexia nervosa. This study aimed to explore how nursing staff experience and understand care for persons with anorexia nervosa within general psychiatric inpatient care settings, with particular attention to the conditions shaping what comes to count as legitimate nursing practice. Nine nursing staff with experience caring for persons with anorexia nervosa in general psychiatric inpatient care in Sweden participated in the study. Data were collected in 2025 using semi‐structured qualitative interviews and were subjected to qualitative content analysis with a Foucauldian‐inspired abductive approach. Findings are presented as two themes, Nursing practice governed by a risk‐oriented care logic and Responsibility as a burden and a possibility within nursing practices. Within those themes are five sub‐themes, Making sense of AN through risk and stabilisation; Enacting control through routines and treatment plans; Normalising coercion in everyday care; Navigating responsibility under unstable care conditions and Producing alternative care practices through relational work . Findings suggest that discourses of risk and stabilisation organise nursing practice through a risk‐oriented care logic that shapes what is recognised as legitimate care and professional competence. Within these conditions, relational and individualised nursing practices become difficult to sustain while responsibility and coercive measures are framed as necessary responses to risk. This study is reported in accordance with the COREQ guidelines.