What is the Role and Significance of Occupational Clothing for the Wearers? Thoughts and Ideas of Nine White Coat Wearers in a Pharmacy

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to reveal the role and significance of occupational clothing for the wearers, exposing some of the thoughts, ideas and opinions that pharmacy workers have about their work uniform, the white coat. My own experiences from working in an environment (a pharmacy) where occupational uniforms were used was one of the reasons for selecting this thesis topic. My interest was also consolidated by the fact that in recent years the significance and essentiality of work uniforms have been emphasised to a greater extent. All these led to the question of how pharmacy employees (as well as other professionals) experience their "uniformed" role. After a short introductory chapter, the first two parts review the methodological challenges dealt with and the theoretical aspects used in analysing the data collected. The next section analyses the interview information, looking at the role and significance of the white coat from four different perspectives: the symbolism of the coat, the coat's power over the wearers' freedom, its significance for the wearers' acting and the coat's role against the burnout phenomenon. The thesis ends by concluding that indeed occupational clothing plays a vital role and is of great significance for the wearers in different circumstances. In our case, we will see that the white coat incorporates various symbols, has the power of limiting the pharmacists' freedom, has a significance for the wearers' acting in their interaction with the "outsider" world and helps the wearers to escape from the risk of getting burnout. Key words: occupational clothing, qualitative methods, symbol, freedom, peoples' acting, the burnout phenomenon.