Formation Process of Professional Identity and Adolescent Identity Among Nursing Students in a Five-Year Consecutive Training Course

[出版社版]This study explores factors related to the process of formulating a professional nursing identity among student nurses who were enrolled in a five-year consecutive training course at a nursing high school and advanced coursed high school. Data were collected from 391 student nurses in the first to fifth years of the program, aged 15 to 20 years old, in March 2014. The students were asked to fill out a questionnaire, including a professional nursing identity test, three occupational identity status tests (wavering and hesitation about becoming a nurse, confidence and commitment in selecting the occupation of nurse, and being qualification-oriented), an adolescent identity test, and questions about demographic variables. The Pearson correlation coefficient showed professional nursing identity had a statistically significant correlation with adolescent identity. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the professional nursing identity score, like the adolescent identity score, decreased in the second, third, and fourth years, and then significantly increased again in the fifth year. The same score changes were seen in wavering and hesitation about becoming a nurse. Moreover, professional nursing identity, not adolescent identity, was significantly stronger among those who had decided to become nurses after age 13 compared to those who had decided to become nurses when they were 13 years old or younger. It was concluded that for fifth-year students, there were relationships among professional nursing identity, adolescent identity, and earlier self-determination to become a nurse. Further studies are needed in order to explore what type of educational support can enhance students’ professional nursing identity