Comparison Of Awareness, Attitude, And Professional Function Of Graduates And Senior Nursing Students

Background: Nurses are the biggest group of health system professionals and have a considerable effect on the quality of the health care currently being provided.Purpose: To investigate awareness, attitude, and professional function of nurses from the view points of person himself, colleagues, instructors and service consumers (patients).Methods: This research is a cross-sectional study carried out to compare the awareness, attitude, and function in employed nurses and senior nursing students. Subjects of the study were 54 employed nurses who had B.S degree from Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and had been in service for4 to 6 years in internal or surgery wards in one of the University’s hospitals and were steel working at the time of the study. Subjects were chosen with purpose based sampling method and were compared with 54 senior university students from the faculty of nursingand midwifery who were ready to pass their training period in internal or surgery wards and were chosen randomly. The tools for collecting data were 4 questionnaires on the degree of awareness, attitude, professional functioning, and the viewpoints of patients, supervisors, and instructors.Results: Mean score of awareness for the nurses and students was 63.7± 3.2 and 45.3±2.1 respectively (P<0.005).Regarding internal and surgical care and updates of nursing, the score of the nurses has been higher generally (P<0.005). But about paediatrics, health, and psychological nursing the two groups were almost alike. 52% of all the persons studied had a positive attitude toward nursing and 46% of them were indifferent. From the patients point of view all the nurses and students function was evaluated in a good level. But supervisors considered employed nurses better than the students with mean scores of 56.2 ± 4 and 53.4 ± 6 respectively. (P<0.002) In subgroups of care and treatment, education and personal characteristics, there was no meaningful difference between supervisor’s and instructors’ opinions.Conclusion: This research showed that employed nurses and students of nursing in Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences had a good level of awareness and mostly a positive attitude toward nursing. Patients had a favourable opinions about giving services and the behaviour of nurses and students.