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Learning Objective 1: Determining the level of self-care agency levels of nursing students.
Learning Objective 2: Nursing students, who are educated in the area of health, are expected to have higher self care agency levels compared to the general public.
Determination of the self care agency levels in Turkish nursing students
Methods:
The study is a cross sectional and descriptive study. The sample consisted of 253 third and fourth grade nursing students who studied at three different state universities in Istanbul and consented to participate in the study. Written permissions were obtained from the departments of the three universities. A questionnaire form, which was developed by the researchers and contained 10 questions about demographic characteristics, and the SCA Scale, which was adapted Turkish population by Nahcivan in 1993 and was determined to be valid and reliable, were administered to the participants. The lowest total score which can be obtained from the scale was 35, whereas the highest total score was 140. Higher scores indicate better levels of SCA. Data was analyzed using the SPSS for Windows 11.5 program. Statistical analyses included the calculation of percentiles, minimum and maximum scores, standard deviations, and mean scores. The Kruskall Wallis, the Mann Whitney U, and the Pearson correlational tests were conducted.
Results:
The mean age of the study sample was 21±2.94. Among the participants, 52.8% graduated from high school, and 65.3% chose their department willingly. The Cronbach alpha coefficient for the SCA Scale was found to be 0.94 in our sample and the mean SCA score was 101±19.50 (range 46-135). In a study conducted with vocational school students found a SCA mean score of 90.58±20. We determined that female students and participants who willingly chose the nursing profession had significantly higher SCA scores (p<0,01).
Conclusion:
The mean SCA scores of nursing students was found to be high. This result indicates that nursing students practice the information they learned about self care in their daily lives.