Background:

The nursing process (NP) is a care planning tool based on scientific knowledge, which also constitutes an opportunity for nurses to build their professional identity.

Objective:

To identify the reasons why the NP is not used to build nurses’ professional identity.

Methodology:

This is a qualitative study conducted with ten nurses working in a neonatal intensive care unit of a public hospital from the interior of Bahia, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The data analysis was performed using the hermeneutic-dialectic approach, based on Claude Dubar’s theoretical-philosophical framework, and with the support of Nvivo 11 software.

Results:

Three categories emerged: a technicist instrumental understanding, between subjacency and lack of understanding, and the search for identity and its lack of understanding.

Conclusion:

The lack of involvement of the NP in the construction of these nurses’ professional identity results from the routine, automatic, and non-reflective use of this tool in the work environment due to the lack of understanding the profession’s identity process.

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