facility1 . Within this context we find constructs of prisonization and prison subculture. Some authors14-17 define prisonization as the process of accepting habits, uses and the culture of prison society entailing a decreased repertoire of human behavior as a consequence of an extended stay in a “total institution”16. Within this process a informal inmate code is formed which leads to the so called prison subculture14, 18-20 as a code of conduct which arises from the inmates themselves to ensure certain degree of resistance against the total institution. This code is based on the principle of loyalty, solidarity and no tipping-off. DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY Deprivation of liberty implies a substantial change in someone’s life. From the moment of imprisonment one loses important values such as privacy, since inmates live together21, liberty, which is limited in decision making and acting, the fulfillment of internal regulations and the presence of public officers during everyday activities22. Individuals assume prison subculture values and attitudes in an attempt to compensate personal deficiencies. Inmates’ self-esteem can be challenged due to criminal stigmatization and self-stigmatization. The loss of self-esteem implies the construction of social stereotypes which turns stigma into self-stigma, leading to inmate’s situational regression, a decreased self-efficacy and a lack of motivation to participate in society23. Moreover, serving a sentence entails dissociation from one’s family, friends and the social context the individual is more familiar with. This break-up implies a series of changes in their emotional state which can lead to disorders such as anxiety, depression, a lack of trust in professionals and their mates24. These changes can seriously hinder their action fluency and thus, their health too. Although women only represent a minority of the imprisoned population (approximately 7%3 ) we must note that particularly them, suffer from a sense of culpability, distress and uncertainty upon imprisonment regarding their families: children and parents, the loss of a home, relationship instability, feelings of helplessness in foresight of irreversible consequences for their families, and above all, their absence in their children’s diseases and their adolescence. Women are considered transgressors by the culture itself and suffer from a triple discrimination: as women, victims and foreigners25. REGULATORY AND LEGAL INFLUENCE Another factor we must consider is that of regulatory and legal influence, since inmates claim their rights by using their bodies as an instrument of protest26, 27. To achieve their purposes, inmates call for attention by means of self-harm, hunger and thirst strikes, foreign body ingestion, refusing to take their treatment, etc. The Mental Health in Prison Workgroup28 describes that it is very important to know how to differentiate between claims and concealed requests for help. This is why nurses must have the knowledge and skills to determine the nature of the problem and provide personalized care1 . CORRECTIONAL NURSING: THE GREAT UNKNOWN According to the American Nurses Association (ANA) correctional nursing is a unique specialty. It Rev Esp Sanid Penit 2016; 18: 110-118 45 M Sánchez-Roig, A Coll-Cámara Prison nursing and its training — 112 — is a compendium of public health, emergencies, community health, occupational health, delivery primary healthcare and nursing school. This Association believes that correctional nursing implies caring for people with very complex health problems and it includes activities such as patient assessment, the delivery of medication, treatment, the assessment of its effects, crisis management, education and delivery of patient care29. In Canada they consider that the health complexity of inmates calls for highly specialized nurses able of delivering care to potentially manipulative and aggressive patients30, 31. In France, the scope of correctional nurses includes prevention, healing, health education and a relational dimension which is key in attenuating the prisonization syndrome32. In the United Kingdom, pathologies do not differ from other European countries and thus, mental health issues, infectious diseases, drug abuse, primary care, women and children aid and people with disabilities prevail33. In Italy, the scope of correctional nursing is based on a process of assessment of the needs of the imprisoned, assistance in general medicine and specialties, drug abuse, mental health, infectious diseases, mother and children area, emergencies and meeting cultural diversity34. In Spain as in other countries, the health of inmates requires specially trained nurses in the most prevalent diseases, which do not differ from those aforementioned, as well as in personal and social skills to be able to meet cultural diversity. Several governmental institutions such as the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC)35, the American Nurse Association (ANA)36, the Royal College of Nursing of UK (RCN)37 and the International Council of Nurses (ICN)38 have drawn up documents where the special nature of the correctional context is established together with the health problems of the imprisoned population, thus describing the role and scope of action of correctional nurses, therefore establishing their level of competency. It is worth noting that in Spain, the Ministry of the