Level of Self-Esteem and Contributive Factors in Japanese Undergraduate Nursing Students

Purpose:The purpose of this study is to evaluate the level of self-esteem as well as investigate personal factors contributing to improving self-esteem in Japanese undergraduate nursing students. Having a healthy self-esteem is important for everybody and may give a tremendous impact on our development as well as our lives because it is said that our self-esteem affect our thinking, emotions, values, and happiness. It is, however, indicated that nursing students tend to demonstrate relatively lower self-esteem than students majored in fields other than nursing in Japan possibly due to the fact that they have more opportunities to face their weaknesses. Because nursing students are in the process of becoming a professional nurse, they often confront with their own lack of knowledge and skills in order to understand and secure safety for patients in clinical settings and thereby the students may lose confidence or trust in themselves. Most nursing students are hard-workers and actively engaged in the clinical practice; therefore, it is essential to support their self-esteem and find out the way to promote their healthy self-esteem.

Methods: A descriptive correlational research design was used in this study. Convenience sampling method was used to recruit the study subject. A total of 258 undergraduate nursing students in a private nursing university located in southern Japan participated in this research. The participants were all females and included 84 freshmen, 78 sophomores, 24 juniors, and 68 seniors. They were requested to complete a questionnaire to assess the level of self-esteem and to examine personal factors contributing to the level of it. A Japanese translated version of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale(Yamamoto, Matsui, & Yamanari, 1982) was used to examine the level of self-esteem, and personal factors were assessed by health status, social support, demographic data such as household status, religion, engagement in clubs or part-time jobs, and initial career interests.Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analyses, independent t-tests, and analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used for data analyses in this study. The Pearson correlation was used to examine the correlations among variables, whereas the t-tests and ANOVAs were utilized to evaluate group differences in the level of stress of participants with varied background variables. In addition, answers to an open-ended question about problems and difficulties they have experienced in the nursing program were summarized thematically.

Results: Analyses of the data in this study is currently in process and will be completed during spring 2017.

Implications: The results of this study will be used to assess the level of self-esteem in Japanese nursing undergraduate students and guide and develop a better clinical practice for nursing students in Japan.