Poster Presentation
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
9:45 AM - 11:00 AM
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
1:00 PM - 2:15 PM
Mother-baby staff perceptions of nursing students and students' perceptions of mother-baby nursing as a career choice
Susan M. Ellerbee, PhD, RNC and Jana Pressler, PhD. College of Nursing, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK, USA
| Learning Objective #1: list two factors that influence a nursing student's choice of workplace after graduation. |
| Learning Objective #2: recognize common and variant themes voiced by staff and students about the desirability of working on a mother-baby unit. |
Health care agencies use multiple strategies to recruit clinically-competent, compassionate, caring nurses for specific units or positions. These efforts begin during nursing students’ clinical rotations. Students’ perceptions of the clinical learning environment have been linked to factors such as staff nurse attitudes about the workplace and nurse-student relationships. Approximately 5-6 % of baccalaureate nursing students select maternal-child nursing for their initial work setting after graduation. Of these, most prefer labor and delivery or neonatal intensive care. No published studies have addressed recruitment issues specific to mother-baby/postpartum units. The purpose of this project was to incorporate a team approach, with representatives from two affiliated institutions, to examine recruitment of nurses to mother-baby/postpartum units. Team members included a nurse manager and nurse recruiter from a large, academic medical center and nurse educators from a university-based college of nursing. This poster links findings from two concurrent studies. In one study, mother-baby nurses were interviewed to identify their attitudes about nursing students. Data are being analyzed using qualitative methodology. The second study used a descriptive, time-series, cohort design in which nursing students completed surveys to determine their interest in and impressions of maternal-child nursing before and after related clinical rotations. Those nursing students will be surveyed again at the end of their nursing program. Common themes will be identified and compared. Based on these data, an evidence-based educational strategy to change negative perceptions and increase the percentage of students who choose mother-baby nursing will be developed and evaluated. Preliminary data from the interviews and surveys will be available in Fall, 2007. Team involvement in the process will also be explored.