Professional Belongingness and Associated Factors among Iranian Undergraduate Nursing Students
Author(s): Zahra Molazem, Shahnaz Rowshan and Ladan Zarshenas*
Abstract
Introduction and Objective: Belongingness is defined as a sense of involvement in a social system, in a way that the individual feels like an integral part of the system. As an important aspect of nursing, belongingness stimulates feelings of professionalism, knowledge and competence in nurses, and has a great impact on the students’ learning and self-belief motivation.
Materials and Methods: This study was designed aiming to determine and compare professional belongingness and its associated factors in undergraduate nursing students at the School of Nursing, Shiraz. This was a descriptive-analytic study conducted in 2017 at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz. Statistical population consisted of all undergraduate nursing students in the college, except freshmen in their first semester.
Results: Data were collected using the Nursing Student Belongingness Scale (NSBS). Data analysis was performed via SPSS Statistics 16.0. Our findings indicated belongingness scores were significantly higher in freshmen comparing to other students; however, there were a good level of professional belongingness among the undergraduate students.
Conclusion: We find it essential that the Department of Education officials try to plan and take measures toward removing the obstacles and factors leading to a reduced sense of professional belongingness as college years go by and provide the necessary conditions to reverse this course of events.