Objective: To find out about the attitudes towards volunteering among the nursing school students, to explore the importance that the school has in spreading out the information on this subject and the role it has in inciting students to engage with volunteering activities.
Methods and subjects:The research was made in the Nursing School Vrapče in March 2014 through the anonymous questionnaire. The query has been adapted from Ledić's 2001 research on citizens' engagement in the civic initiatives in their community. The questions were handed to 161 students of first (75) and fourth (85) grades in the age groups from 14 to 20. The number of valid questionnaires was 160. Descriptive statistics has been used as a method to interpret and estimate the rates and percentages of certain types of answers. A chi-squared test was used to test the independency of the variable, while t-test was used on the part of the questionnaire that focuses on the attitudes on the scale. Results: 145 (90,6%) students out of 156 (97,5%) has been acquaint with the concept of volunteering. 101 (63,1%) got the information about it in their elementary school, 24 (15%) in their high school, while 19 (11,9%) got the information in their families. 145 (90,7%) acknowledges the usefulness of volunteering for the community. 27 (16,9%) students volunteered before, while 115 (71,9%) expressed their willingness to volunteer. They are motivated by the desire to help, the feeling of being useful, acquiring new knowledge and possibilities of meeting new people. Considerable differences in the answers can be noticed in the answers to two questions: If they were asked to help in the nursing home for the older and weak, the difference on the level of risk among the first graders is chi-quadrat =12,545 (p = 0). That volunteering is an activity that requires a lot of free time caused the difference (p = 0,2%) among the answers of fourth grade students.
Conclusion:These results point out the positive attitude towards volunteering among students. The experience of volunteering in the school can be used to achieve educational goals, especially to develop an active civic role of young people in the society. The weight of the curriculum requires careful planning in order to obtain students' empathy and altruism, which are qualities that are inherently present in the occupations of both nursing and volunteering.