Student nurses’ specialty choice: the influence of personality and education

Abstract

Before and after a nine week psychiatric-mental health (PMH) nursing program of their Diploma course, 51 second year student nurses completed a questionnaire on which they rated their interest in 14 nursing specialties. They also completed measures of personality and attitudes to psychiatric treatment. Factor analysis showed that students’ initial specialty interests fell into three groups that were termed ‘procedural’, ‘child/infant orientated’, and ‘action orientated’. After the PMH program, the popularity and interrelationships of specialty choice changed substantially. Community and psychiatric nursing became more popular, whereas some of the ‘procedural’ specialities became less so. Correlations showed that the more conservative nurses initially selected the more traditional nursing specialties, and there were statistically significant relationships between psychological defence style and specialty choice. These findings have implications for nursing specially choice and recruitment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

R. Julian Hafner

Julian Hafner is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Flinders University School of Medicine, and Director of the WA Dibden Research Unit at Glenside Hospital, Adelaide. He has a long standing interest in mental health service delivery by nurses, an area that is rapidly expanding in Australia.

Nicholas Proctor

Nicholas Procter is a Lecturer in Nursing at the University of South Australia and Mental Health Nurse at Glenside Hospital. He is author and co-author of several publications and conferance papers in the area of psychiatric-mental health nursing and clinical teaching. He is also a member of the Editorial Board and Manuscript Review Panel of Contemporary Nurse.