Assessment of perception of nursing among nursing students at selected college in chennai

Perception is the way in which something is regarded, understood or interpreted. It is important to a certain how students perceive nursing and the decision to choose nursing to be their career. Understanding career decisions of graduates with a B. Sc (N) degree is an essential component of recruitment and retention strategies. Objective to assess the perception of nursing among nursing students.

166 samples were selected using purposive sampling technique at selected college of nursing, Chennai.

Non experimental descriptive design was used.

Non probability purposive sampling technique was used to select the samples. Self Administered Questionnaire was used to assess the perception of nursing.

The study findings revealed that 9.64% of the students had moderately favourable perception and 90.4% of the students had favourable perception. The findings revealed that Comparison of level of perception among the first, second, third and fourth year students revealed that there was no statistically significant difference was found between the first and second years, first and fourth years, second and fourth years and third and fourth years. There was statistically significant difference was found between the first and third years (t=2.280 @ p=0.025) and second and third years (t=2.539 p=0.013).

Nursing students those who enrolled in nursing on their own interest had favourable perception of nursing. Nursing students whose both the parents are educated and whose family had a positive reaction to nursing had favourable perception. Nursing students those who do not plan to change profession had favourable perception of nursing. These findings highlights that majority of the nursing students have favorable perception towards nursing and they like to continue nursing as their career. But few students wanted to change their profession and immediate steps to be taken to create awareness about nursing profession and its values.