| There is limited research related to nursing students' social media use. Because of this, there was a need to further explore how they were using social media and their ability to maintain e-professionalism. This study discovered that pre-licensure baccalaureate nursing students are actively using multiple social media accounts on a daily basis. Nursing is considered a trusted and respected profession, therefore, nursing students are held to a high professional standard. This includes maintaining privacy boundaries when managing professional and personal information during social media use.;The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the processes pre-licensure baccalaureate nursing students used to maintain e-professionalism when utilizing social media. Participants were chosen through purposeful sampling. Semi-structured interviews were utilized along with documents that simulated social media postings. Participants' privacy settings were inspected. After completing the coding process, the Skrabal theory of e-professionalism among pre-licensure baccalaureate nursing students(c) was developed.;Results found students struggled with recognizing professional social media use. Privacy settings, number of friends, frequency of social media use, and operation of different social media accounts were processes that influenced social media use and management of privacy boundaries. The factors of age, nursing school, ethical reasoning, managing emotions, and social media education influenced nursing students' ability to use social media in a professional manner. Social media education was determined to be the factor that, if modified, could impact e-professionalism most significantly. Concept-based education, along with teaching strategies that assist students in transferring knowledge learned in the classroom to actual practice, was recommended. |
