Saudi Nursing Students’ Attitudes towards the Nursing Profession

Objective: The purposes of the current study are: 1. Measure the nursing student’s attitude toward nursing profession 2. Investigate the effect of Socio demographic factors on nursing students’ attitudes toward the nursing profession. Methodology: A descriptive cross- sectional design was utilized to identify the nursing students’ attitudes toward nursing profession. A non probability convenience sample was used in the present study. All of the students enrolled in the fall semester Academic year 2012/2013 at the College of Nursing, were invited to participate in the survey of Student Nursing Attitudes towards the Nursing Profession. The participation was voluntary and anonymous and the purpose of the study was fully explained before gaining the participants’ consents. Only 152 students participated and returned the questionnaires. The students were allocated in different academic years including the first, second, third, fourth and the internship year. Data were collected using the Attitude Scale for Nursing Profession developed by Coban&Kasikci (2011), which was used in surveying the nursing students’ attitudes toward nursing profession. Data were analyzed using SPSS Version 18.0. Results: Current study findings revealed that the mean attitude score of the nursing student was 150.48 ± 17.86, which tended to be a positive attitude toward the nursing profession with a range of scores from 96 – 178.  And the student coming from the Central (Mean score =151.92, p = 0.02), South (Mean score =156.75, p = 0.02) and East region (147.30, p = 0.02) had significant statistical differences regarding positive attitudes toward the profession when compared to the students coming from the North region (Mean score =110.50, p = 0.02) who on the contrary had significantly statistically negative attitudes. Conclusion: The attitude of Saudi nursing students tends to be positive towards nursing profession. On the other hand, the negative attitudes towards nursing profession held by the minority of the students were related to residence in North region and young age group; less than 20 years old. Key words: Nursing profession – nursing students – Attitudes