Survey On Professional Identity Of Baccalaureate Nursing Students In Sichuan Province

Objective:1. To describe the status quo of baccalaureate nursing students' professional identity in SiChuan Province;2. To know the changing trend of baccalaureate nursing students' professional identity among different grades and to compare their professional identity;3. To compare baccalaureate nursing students' professional identity among different schools;4. To describe and analyze influencing factors associated with baccalaureate nursing students' professional identity;Subjects and Methods:Subjects: The freshman, sophomore, junior, senior and grade five of baccalaureate nursing students with full-time education in four nursing departments in SiChuan(nursing department of SiChuan University, nursing department of ChengDu Traditional Chinese Medicine University, nursing department of LuZhou medical college, nursing department of ChuanBei medical college) were involved in this study.Methods: This study is conducted with questionnaire which is self-made and named Questionnaire for Baccalaureate Nursing Students, the questionnaire were developed by looking up lots of literatures and related researches and consulting five specialists in tertiary education, nursing education, nursing management and psychology. 1073 subjects who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were included in this study. The survey was divided into three phases, phase 1: the development of the questionnaire; phase 2: preliminary survey to verify reliability and validity of the questionnaire; phase 3: on the spot survey. SPSS software for windows version 12.5 was applied to analyze the data.Results:1. The overall status quo of baccalaureate nursing students' professional identityThe mean score of baccalaureate nursing students' professional identity was 79.06±6.81, as for the mean item score in different subscales, the scores in professional knowledge, professional affection, professional volition, professional value, professional skill and professional expectation were 13.79±2.23, 14.66±2.75, 18.97±2.44, 3.39±0.84, 17.29±1.84, 15.22±2.27 respectively.2. The distributive condition of students' professional identity among different schools and grades:2.1 Professional identity in different schools: the professional identity in four schools(represented by 1, 2, 3, 4) were different, 1 got the highest score while 4 got the lowest score, the rank from the lowest to the highest was 4, 2, 3, 1. Comparison between two schools showed that differences occurred between 1 and 2, 1 and 4.2.2 Professional identity in different grades: Grade 5 got the lowest score while the freshman got the highest. The rank from the lowest to the highest was grade 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. There were differences between each grade except grade 2 and 3.3. Influencing factors associated with professional identity3.1 Univariate analysis: Influencing factors associated with professional identity were as followed: gender, grade, rural or urban students, whether being regulating matriculation, reasons for majoring in nursing speciality, achievement in school, whether holding a post, family income and different hospital. Professional identity of female was higher than male; grade one had the highest professional identity and grade five had the lowest; professional identity of rural origin students were higher than which from urban areas; professional identity of students enrolled by the first will were higher than those enrolled by other methods; students who enjoyed nursing profession had higher professional identity; students with an excellent school achievement got higher professional identity than those with a bad performance in school; students cadre had higher professional identity than those without any posts in school; students with lower family income got higher professional identity than those with higher family income.3.2 Multivariate analysis: Reasons for majoring in nursing speciality was a factor that influenced students' professional identity. Students who enjoyed nursing profession had higher professional identity.Conclusions:1. The level of baccalaureate nursing students' professional identity in SiChuan Province belongs to ordinary.2. Students with 4-year length of college have lower professional identity than students with 5-year length of college.3. Professional identity of nursing students is negative related with grade: the higher grade, the lower professional identity.4. Gender, enrollment methods, reasons for majoring in nursing speciality, students' school achievement, whether being students' cadre, family income, different hospital etc influence professional identity.5. Reasons for majoring in nursing speciality is the most important influencing factor of professional identity, students who enjoy nursing profession have higher professional identity than students majoring nursing speciality for other reasons.Suggestions for further study:1. To further explore other influencing factors associated with professional identity;2. To further explore methods for the enhancement of professional identity;3. Analysis and evaluation on the affect and method of the way to enhance nursing students'professional identity;4. Achievements and shortcomings of modern nursing education model on the improvement of nursing students'professional identity.Study Limitations:1. The similar survey is rare in China, so no comparison could be done. If a follow-up longitudinal study is carried out, we could find out the variances of professional identity.2. The study is a cross-sectional study, the argument intensity is relatively low(third level), so other qualitative study, questionnaire combined with deep interview or narrative study are to be carried out in this field. 3. In this study, two schools are 4-year system education, the other two schools are 5-year system education, considering overmatching, we did not compare two 4-year system schools and 5-year system schools respectively, whereas we compare different grades in four schools.