| Learning Objective #1: Identify components of professional self-esteem | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Recognize strategies to enhance nursing students' professional self-esteem |
Objective: To determine the professional self-esteem of senior nursing students and BSN Completion students. Design: Descriptive. Dissemination Sample, Setting: A convenience sample (N = 162) of senior generic and RN students at the University of South Carolina Aiken. Concept: Professional Self-Esteem (PSE) as measured by the Professional Self-Esteem Scale (PSES). Method: Participants completed the PSES, an 18 item investigator-constructed tool, which purports to measure perception of professional self-esteem. Data was analyzed using descriptive analysis. Findings: Of the 18 items analyzed, three were selected for closer scrutiny due to the significant responses of the participants to those items. Over 98% agreed with the statement “I am proud to be a nurse.” Over 41% disagreed or were neutral in response to “I would encourage my son or daughter to be a nurse.” In response to the statement “If I could go back in time, I would choose nursing as my career again” 80% agreed or strongly agreed, but 20% were either neutral, disagreed, or strongly disagreed. Conclusion: The results indicate that while the great majority of this sample are proud to be nurses, a disturbing number would neither encourage their sons and daughters to be nurses, nor choose nursing as a career for themselves if they could go back in time. This finding must be addressed and corrected. Implications: Results indicate the need for further study of this topic. Further testing of the PSES is planned in a descriptive correlational study that will include Phase Two, which will correlate the PSE of seniors graduating from an Associate Degree Nursing Program, nurses in a BSN Completion Program, Associate Degree nurses who plan to return to school to complete the BSN, and those with no plans to return to school. Data from both Phase One and Phase Two will be included in this presentation.
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