Social Determinants of Health and College Persistence Risk in Accelerated Undergraduate Nursing Students

Abstract

Social determinants of health have been identified as factors influencing resilience, but little data exist regarding their influence on nursing students’ persistence to graduation. Nursing schools must address interventions to promote persistence. This nonexperimental quantitative study explored the impact of social determinants in prelicensure nursing. Nine social determinants were found to be significantly associated with six college persistence variables in nursing programs. Persistence findings showed that 31.6 percent of the participants did not graduate or did not graduate on time. Addressing risk factors related to social determinants of health may decrease the risk of attrition in nursing programs.