Changes in Finnish nursing students' nursing orientations between mid 1990s and mid-2000s

SummaryAimsThe main purpose of the study was to identify nursing students' orientations to nursing, their experiences of caring and nursing, the meaning of nursing and the expectations applied to a nursing career, and to report the changes in the orientations between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. Another aim was to determine the extent to which students' age, sex, having children, pre-educational caring experiences and intentions to leave nursing might explain the changes in nursing orientations.BackgroundThere is a worldwide shortage of nurses but at the same time there is an ever decreasing number of applicants that are entering nursing education. Young people are less interested in choosing nursing as a career option than they were one or two decades ago.MethodsA sample of 426 nursing students in 1997 and 660 students in 2006–2007 from the Universities of Applied Sciences in different parts of Finland completed a questionnaire containing questions concerning the students' background factors and 26 Likert-type statements concerning their nursing orientations.ResultsThe following orientations were identified: personal responsibility, idealistic nursing, selfactualization, and family centrality. Statistically significant changes were found in all of the orientations between the two periods. Fewer nursing students in the 2000s were oriented to idealistic nursing or emphasised self-actualization. Instead, there were more family centrality oriented nursing students in the mid-2000s than in the mid-1990s.ConclusionsThe results reflect the changes in the student generation applying for nursing education. The results challenge nurse educators to use teaching methods that promote students' awareness of their individual nursing orientations.