Career guidance for nursing education: a mixed-method study in high schools

ABSTRACT

One way to address the shortages of nurses might be if more high school students have active support from their school counsellors. The aim of this research was to explore the perceptions of school counsellors in Bahrain about nursing and describe current nursing-related career guidance practices. A mixed-method study involving 10 high school counsellors was used. Data were analysed descriptively, and themes were created to capture key notions. The participants held positive perceptions about nursing and implemented a variety of activities; however, nursing was not considered in their usual career counselling plans. Although the results were similar to previous research in other countries, a discouraging finding was the neglect of schools in adequately informing students about nursing as a career.

KEYWORDS:

• Career guidance
• school counsellors
• high school students
• nursing
• perceptions
• semi-structured interviews

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the management and staff of RCSI Bahrain and the Ministry of Education, Bahrain for their support. Appreciation also goes to all the school counsellors who participated in this study and who deserve sincere thanks. Many thanks to Rabab Al-Muqahwi for the support she provided in translating the manuscripts and to Professor Susan Dovey for guiding the writing of this article. Special thanks to Professor Seamus Cowman who supervised my PhD research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

Before conducting the study, an approval to conduct the study was obtained from a research ethics committee. Permission was also obtained from the Ministry of Education, Bahrain.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Bahrain [BR00023, 2014-02].

Notes on contributors

Eman Tawash

Eman Tawash is the Director of BSc (Hons.) Nursing at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Bahrain. She is interested in research pertaining to nursing education and recruitment.