Introduction:

Historically, the white uniform has characterized the nursing profession. Nevertheless, currently, there is a wide variety of nursing outfit styles which are transforming the perception about the profession, including aspects related to the organization and social image.

Objective:

To analyze the impact of appearance in the construction of the social image of nursing from the perception of male nurses regarding their uniform. Methods: An in-depth interview was conducted on 8 male nurses from Costa Rica in order, from an interpretative phenomenological frame, to better understand the meaning of the male nurses' lived experiences in the profession. These interpretative inferences based on nursing theoretical frames allowed an organization of the nurses' experiences into thematic units.

Results:

Diverse themes emerged including: nurses dress in white; the variations in the nursing outfit denote social hierarchies; male nurse add elements to their outfits in order to be specifically identified and attributed with a masculine image of higher social prestige.

Conclusions:

Male nurses accept the use of a white, or colored uniform for those subordinated staff; however, higher rank male nurses prefer wearing regular civil outfit, considering it as a reinforcement of their status or position of power and authority which should imply a higher social status.