Nursing students’ professional values for reinforcing the professional identity

to understand the nursing students’ professional values in different Brazilian universities and verify a correlation between the “Professional Value” and the sociodemographic variables.

Methods:

quantitative, cross-sectional, and descriptive study conducted through an electronic questionnaire with a Professional Values Scale (NPVS-3). Participants were Nursing students of all semesters from three universities - two in the Southeast region and one in the North region.

Results:

of the 337 participating Nursing students, 282 were female. The Caring dimension presented the highest score (mean=46.61), and Professionalism, the lowest score (mean=34.65). A statistically significant association was detected between the Caring dimension, “university where is attending,” and “gender.”

Conclusions:

the results indicate the Caring dimension as the one containing the most scored professional values since the nurses’ training, and the relation of those values in such dimension is more significant in the female sample.

Descriptors:
Nursing Students; Code of Ethics; Nursing Ethics; Role of the Nursing Professional; Knowledge Management

Variables	n	%
Gender
Female	282	83.68
Male	55	16.32
Color/Race Self-declared
Yellow	135	40.06
White	104	30.86
Indigenous	20	5.93
Brown	48	14.24
Black	30	8.90
University
University 1 - Southeast	210	62.31
University 2 - Southeast	47	13.95
University 3 - North	80	23.74
Semester
1^st	2	0.60
2^nd	50	15.02
3^rd	28	8.41
4^th	58	17.42
5^th	21	6.31
6^th	83	24.92
7^th	27	8.11
8^th	58	17.42
9^th	6	1.80
No answer	4	1.19

Dimension (N = 337)	Mean	Standard- deviation	Minimum	Median	Maximum
Caring	46.61	3.70	25	47.00	50
Activism	43.78	5.66	28	45.00	50
Professionalism	34.55	3.80	21	35.00	40
Total	124.93	11.72	86	128.00	140

Variable	n	Mean	SD^* * SD - Standard deviation; †Min - Minimum; ǂMax - Maximum; §Kruskal-Wallis test;	Min†	Maxǂ	p value
Caring
University 1	210	46.84	3.68	25	50	0.016^§
University 2	47	47.17	2.83	38	50
University 3	80	45.67	4.09	29	50
Female	282	46.77	3.68	25	50	0.015^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Male	55	45.76	3.76	33	50	0.015^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Activism
University 1	210	43.71	5.65	28	50	0.908^§
University 2	47	43.89	6.13	29	50
University 3	80	43.90	5.49	28	50
Female	282	44.03	5.66	28	50	0.030^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Male	55	42.49	5.58	28	50	0.030^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Professionalism
University 1	210	34.41	3.74	24	40	0.528^§
University 2	47	34.89	4.37	21	40
University 3	80	34.69	3.65	24	40
Female	282	34.67	3.80	21	40	0.192^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Male	55	33.93	3.81	24	40	0.192^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Total
University 1	210	124.96	11.58	86	140	0.610^§
University 2	47	125.96	12.14	94	140
University 3	80	124.26	11.93	86	140
Female	282	125.47	11.77	86	140	0.020^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.
Male	55	122.18	11.16	88	140	0.020^ Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test.

Associação Brasileira de Enfermagem SGA Norte Quadra 603 Conj. "B" - Av. L2 Norte 70830-102 Brasília, DF, Brasil, Tel.: (55 61) 3226-0653, Fax: (55 61) 3225-4473 - Brasília - DF - Brazil
E-mail: reben@abennacional.org.br

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[1] Corresponding author: Chennyfer Dobbins Abi Rached, E-mail: chennyfer@usp.br