A study on assertiveness skills among nursing students

Assertiveness is a skill often referred to in social and communication skills training. Assertiveness enables an individual to act in their own best interests, to stand up for themselves without undue anxiety, to express honest feelings comfortably and to express personal rights without denying the rights of others. Similarly, nursing professionals should have assertiveness in their tasks and daily routine activities.

To assess the assertiveness skills in nursing students studying in NINE, PGIMER, Chandigarh.

An exploratory study was carried out on 200 nursing students by applying semi structured questionnaire using convenience sampling technique.

Analysis revealed that majority of students has a fairly assertive outlook, but may benefit from some assertive training. Few of students are assertive in some situations, but their natural response is either non assertive or aggressive, assertive training is suggested. When assertiveness skills was compared with socio-demographic characteristics of the nursing students, the nursing students whose age was between 25–30 years was found to be statistically significantly associated (p=0.02*) with assertiveness skills, they were found more assertive as compared to students aged between 19–24 years. The income (who are on deputation and earning >Rs. 30, 000) of the nursing students was found significantly associated (p=0.02*) with the assertiveness skills as they are more assertive as compared to students who have nil income. However, sex, education, occupation, marital status, living status, family type of nursing students did not show any significant association with the assertiveness skills. The challenge for the future is to find out the non-assertive students and to develop and teach them assertiveness skills.

The study concluded that majority of students has a fairly assertive outlook, but may benefit from some assertive training.