Your Health - Don’t Leave it to Luck: Analyzing Nursing Students' Perceptions of Self-Care

Lack of self-care in nursing is the source of several other issues in within the profession. These issues include nurse burn out, lack of job satisfaction, and decreased new graduate retention rates. Practicing self-care as a nursing student would help establish healthy habits and prevent the issues associated with nurses not practicing self-care. In order to implement this theory, I applied for a Seeds of Wellness Grant from Kent State of Wellness (KSoW) through the Diversity in Nursing Association (DNA). DNA received the grant and planned a self-care event featuring eight health related booths. Each booth fit into the American Nurses Association (ANA) Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation Grand Challenge (HNHN GC) five key areas. The booths included fitness, chair massage, mindful moment, make your own trail mix bar, yoga, mental health and coping, blood pressure monitoring, and DNA. The fitness booth was run by a doctoral student from the department of exercise science, and featured an interactive display of proper body mechanics when working out. The chair massage and yoga booth were run by licensed professionals. Mindful moments, blood pressure monitoring, and DNA were run by nursing students. The make your own trail mix bar was run by a graduate student from the nutrition department. The mental health and coping booth was run by two counselors from the department of mental health. The DNA booth used a research tool to assess the participants’ perception of self-care before and after completion of the event. After completing the event, the DNA booth also handed out reusable water bottle to promote hydration during class. There were an estimated 200 participants, of those 159 took the pre quiz, and 136 took the post quiz. Nearly 70% of participants reported “strongly agree” when given the statement, “I am likely to engage in self-care activities due to this event.”