Comparison of Nurses’ Professional Behaviour in the Educational Settings and the Workplaces

Introduction: Activities of a nurse are not limited to his/her knowledge and skills in the management of patients, but they need to have some characteristics related to their job. These characteristics in general are referred to professional behaviour. The present study is an attempt to compare professional behaviours in an educational setting (nursing students) and workplace (nurses).

Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study. The data were collected using NPVS-R standard questionnaires used in two versions; self-report questionnaires completed by the study groups and assessment questionnaires completed by the authorities. The students and nurses were sampled through census and cluster sampling, respectively. The sample size included 80 patients (40 samples per study group), and finally 160 questionnaires were completed by them. After collecting the data, they were entered to the SPSS18 software and then analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, and paired t-test.

Results: The highest mean score of the two study groups based on self-report and assessment questionnaires was obtained in assessment of nurses by head nurses, and the lowest score was obtained in self-reports of the nurses. There was no significant statistical difference between the study groups (P =0.322). However, the mean score obtained from student assessments by instructors and professors and the mean score obtained from assessment of nurses by the head nurses were significantly different in terms of pragmatism (P= 0.05) and freedom (P >0.001).

Conclusion: The results obtained from evaluation of the eight factors related to professional nursing behaviour highlight the professional behaviour in the workplace and educational settings, extension of this behaviour from educational settings to the workplace, and even promotion of that. Thus, culture building and holding in-service training courses and including the professional behaviour education in the curriculums of students are highly recommended.