A tension between genuine care and other duties: Swedish nursing students’ views of their future work

Summary is a current need for nurses to take on new roles due to changing health care policies, economic cut-backs and shortage of staff. It is therefore important to study nursing students’ view of their future profession. The theoretical framework was contemporary theories of competence development, which has shown that people’s understanding of their work is expressed in their actions. The aim of this study was to describe nursing students’ understanding of their future professional role in health care. A purposeful sample of 12 nursing students wrote narratives. The texts were condensed in five steps using the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological Method. The essence of the students’ view of their future work was A tension between genuine nursing care and other duties. Four themes constituted this essence: professional status, working conditions and stress, evidence-based nursing contra holistic care, teamwork, co-operation and disrespect, and intensive care instead of geriatrics. This study highlights pedagogic and practical problems that need to be constructively addressed. The nursing students’ eagerness to care in a holistic way needs to be acknowledged and used in a fruitful way. This core function of nursing needs to be integrated with up-to-date nursing research.