Socio-demographic profile and professional interests of students of Bachelor’s degree in nursing

Abstract

Introduction: Although it exists a deficiency in nursing staff at a global level in health services, in Latin America the rate of dropout in nursing schools is high; this problem lies over workers who must provide nurse care in situations of fatigue and stress. The problem leads us to think there are no appropriate characteristics for students to successful fulfill their career.

Objective: To determine the socio demographic, economic and family characteristics, school background and professional interests of students entering nursing. We assume an existing relationship between dropout, the interests or goals that guided students in the selection of the career in nursing, the socio-economic-family characteristics and the institution of origin.

Methodology: Cross-sectional and descriptive study that considered the 100% of admission interviews made to incoming nursing students from 2001 to 2006. The socio-demographic, economical and familiar data were obtained from closed and open-ended questions; the Sigmarket proposal was used for the classification of the socioeconomic level, the professional interests were evaluate from a Iikert scale.

Results: The obtained profile showed a young population, mainly single, that doesn’t have a paid job and depends from their parents economically, from a low socio-economic conditions, their interests are focus towards the acquisition of knowledge and aspects of social nature.

Conclusions: It was important to identify a mayor tendency, although not statistically significant, of continuing the career from part of the students with lower social conditions and those whose social interests are located in the highest level.