Nursing Student's Perception and attitude towards Nursing Profession at the College of Applied Medical Sciences

Abstract

The study was conducted to identify the perception of nursing students towards nursing. A purposive sample of 108 students affiliated to the nursing department in AL Dawadmi Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, female branch, Shaqra University, Saudi Arabia, was included in the study. Students were selected from six different levels. A descriptive cross sectional study, Self-Administered Questionnaire was used for data collection. It comprised three parts. The study was conducted at the beginning of the second semester of the academic year 2013-2014 Students. Study findings indicated that the highest percentage (90%) of the study subjects perceived nursing as a human profession, followed by (83%) of them perceived the nursing profession as a significant profession in patient recovery. the majority (78.7%) of the study subjects felt proud, about (19.4%) were defensive about nursing. While smallest percentages (.9%) of them were, shy. The study recommends conducting further studies on the perception of the student nursing in other different regions in king Saudi Arabia and policy makers in higher education consider other factors such as students' gender and choice for the specialty.