Attitude of nursing staffs and their awareness on their roles in new nursing education program

Abstract

Introduction: Clinical education is the basic part of nursing education program. Preceptorship is one of the effective factors in clinical education. In this regard, a new kind of clinical instruction was designed in our country with the aim of training in the field. The active presence of interested clinical colleagues and their activities in the field of instruction are facilitating the road in attaining the aims of new instruction since students are in direct contact with the instructors, as their role models, throughout the training period. Meanwhile, for the personnel, it seems a necessity to have a positive attitude towards their roles in instructing students.

Methods: The present study was a descriptive study with the purpose of investigating the awareness and attitude of staff nurses on their roles in the new nursing education program. The study samples consisted of 106 BS nursing staffs. The instrument for collecting the data was a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test and analysis of variance were used for data analysis in this study.

Results: The findings of the research indicated that the majority of the nurses had appropriate awareness with positive attitudes (74.5%). Meanwhile, the highest number of those with weak positive attitude was found in those with weak awareness (57.5%). Other findings showed no significant relationship between samples' demographic characteristics and their awareness. But, there was a significant relationship between some demographic characteristics, like type of employment, working shift, occupational rank, educational experience and their attitudes.

Conclusion: The findings of the research showed that the majority of nurses with positive attitude had appropriate awareness and the majority of staff with weak positive attitude had weak awareness. Obviously, if nurses support the changes in education, its transition from theoretical education to in-field training will be facilitated. Nursing managers and educators can improve staffs awareness and encourage them to have a positive attitude in order to play their roles better.