Professionalism in Nursing Practice as Perceived By Baccalaureate Degree, Diploma and Associate Degree Nursing Graduates (Leadership, Development, Management).

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine baccalaureate degree, diploma and associate degree nursing graduates' perceptions of professionalism in nursing practice. This involved the analysis of 11 characteristics identified by Dagenais and Meleis as indicative of professional behavior in nursing. Specifically, graduates were asked to assess own professionalism, peers' professionalism, the importance of professionalism in nursing practice and the adequacy of their educational preparation for facilitating professionalism in nursing practice. Participants in the study included 276 recent nursing graduates from 11 programs of nursing in Michigan. A mail questionnaire was used to obtain selected demographic data and the graduates' perceptions of professionalism. Parametric statistical procedures of analysis of variance and correlation were used in the analysis of the data. Overall, graduates perceived all characteristics as important to nursing practice. It appears that graduates maintain an image of professional nursing practice which reflects the behaviors described in the nursing literature. Similarly, each graduate group perceived their educational preparation as adequately facilitating their professionalism. All graduates perceived peers' professionalism as less than their own. It was suggested that this view of peers may inhibit the collaborative relationship between nurses. The characteristic, research orientation, received the lowest mean score by all graduates. This response suggested that the graduates do not perceive research as important as the other professionalism characteristics and do not highly consider their research skills, peers' research skills, and their educational preparation in this area. The data suggested that the curricula of the three types of programs are possibly quite similar in the introduction of students to certain professional behaviors. Perhaps the differences between the various types of graduates occur primarily in the degree or extent of emphasis a particular program places upon a given characteristic.