Professional Image Perceptions in First-year Nursing Students

Background: Determining the professional image perceptions of the first-year nursing students who have recently chosen the nursing profession is of great importance in delineating the profession profile. The present study aimed to determine the image perception of first-year nursing students and its related factors. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional research was conducted in the Fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. In total, 105 first-year nursing students were selected from the Nursing Department of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Bursa Uludağ University in Turkey. The study subjects were recruited randomly. A Student Identification Form and the Image Scale for the Nursing Profession were used as data collection tools. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal- Wallis tests were applied for analyzing the obtained data in SPSS. Results: The Mean±SD score of the Image Scale for the Nursing Profession was achieved as 149.06±11.19. Students who had willingly selected the nursing profession gained higher scores than those of other students in professional qualifications, education, professional status, and appearance scale sub-dimensions and total scale mean scores (P<0.05). In addition, the mean scores of the female students in the sub-dimensions of education, gender, and total scale were significantly higher than those of their male counterparts (P<0.05). Conclusion: The nursing students indicated a good image perception of the nursing profession. Conducting a similar study is recommended for senior nursing students and staff nurses.