Professional values of nursing students in nursing leadership and management course

Abstract

Introduction: Determining the innate professional values of nursing students during their academic years in nursing schools provide a more concrete measurement of their professional readiness when they become licensed nurses. Background: Among all nursing subjects and courses, the Nursing Leadership and Management contains topics that emphasize professional adjustment and value development among students to become more professionally ready for the real world experience of the nursing profession. Objective: The study aimed to determine the perceived professional value orientation of the students to the five factors of Nurse Professional Values Scale-Revised. These factors are the values of Caring, Professionalism, Trust, Activism, and Justice.Methodology: Using quantitative cross-sectional study design as the methodology, it included 200 nursing students both from the female and male campuses of a Saudi University. These 200 students as participants have finished the course Nursing Leadership and Management.Results: The responses of the participants are mostly focused on the Caring factor where when ranked occupies the first top five (5) positions relating to the items 22, 21, 24, 25 23 with a mean of 3.49 (SD = 1.19), 3.44 (SD = 1.28), 3.44 (SD = 1.24), 3.39 (SD = 1.28), 3.37 (SD = 1.22), respectively. While the bottom five (5) of the responses pertains to the factors Professionalism (item 6), Caring (item 18), Professionalism (item 5), Trust (items 2 and 1). These factors received a mean of 3.9 (SD = 1.25), 3.17 (SD = 1.35), 3.16 (SD = 1.15), 3.14 (SD = 1.22), 3.00 (SD = 1.39), respectively.Conclusion: Caring being the essential element of the nursing profession is the most valued quality of nursing students. A full understanding of the essence of caring allows the future nurse professionals to deliver compassionate and sensitive nursing service.