Professional Identity Formation and Related Factors among Nursing Students in a Five-Year Consecutive Training Course

[出版社版]This study explores professional identity formation and related factors among student nurses who currently enrolled in a five-year consecutive training course at either a nursing high school and advanced coursed high school. Data was collected from 391 student nurses in years 1 through 5, aged 15 to 20 years old. The students were asked to fill out a questionnaire, including the occupational identity status test created by Matsushita in 2014. After excluding the invalid responses, we analyzed 357 (97.0%) valid questionnaires. As a result of the factor analysis on 20 items of the occupational identity status test, three primary factors were extracted: wavering and hesitation toward being a nurse, confidence and commitment to selecting the occupation of nurse, and qualification- oriented. Moreover, it was revealed that those who decided to be nurses when they were 13 years old or younger and who decided to be a nurse on their own were statistically related to having less wavering and hesitation toward being a nurse and having higher confidence and commitment to the selection of this occupation. Focusing on the level of wavering and hesitation toward being a nurse by years enrolled in the course, it increased significantly in the second year, decreased in year three before increasing again in the fourth year, and then decreased again in the fifth year. We considered that this trend results in the formation of stable occupational identity in students’ fifth year of the source, though they experience hesitation and commitment again and again, and experience wavering throughout their five years