Abstract

Introduction: The media plays a crucial role in shaping nurses’ social image. Disseminating a nursing image inconsistent with their professional identity has adverse consequences for nurses, the healthcare system, and society. Objective: To compare nurses’ image and role as information sources in 2019 and 2020, the professional identity framework agreed upon by ISPIN will be used for analysis. To study whether the image of nurses in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic was more comprehensive and whether they were given a more significant role as information sources. Material and Method: Quantitative analysis using an instrument that evaluates the coherence between the published image and the professional nurse identity defined by ISPIN in 468 news articles published in El País and El Mundo in 2019 and 2020, which included the words nurse(s) or nursing. Results: The media presence of nurses increased in 2020. The main topics in which they were mentioned during the two years were related to problematic issues within the profession. The number of reports describing their daily work increased in 2020. The most widely publicized role remained caregiving, but their visibility as managers grew during the pandemic. Stereotypes used to represent them decreased, and the presence of male nurses was more significant. Conclusion: Although the presence of nurses and their associations as information sources increased, they were not the primary sources in most of the news articles.