Nursing students motivations and satisfaction, Do the motivation and satisfaction of nursing students change during their study years?

Abstract

Background: Study the level of nursing students` motivations and satisfaction may help policy makers to develop training plans to improve graduates skills and commitment. This study was conducted to investigate nursing students' motivations and satisfaction during study years at Ahvaz Jundishapur University of medical sciences.

Methods:It was a cross-sectional study to explore 197 nursing students' viewpoints about their fields. A validated and reliable self-made questionnaire was developed and used. Data analysis was carried out by descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test using SPSS software (version 16).

Results: The study findings showed that the most crucial motivation factors to select nursing course were “job security” and “interest in medical science” with means 3.94 and 3.68 respectively. The mean satisfaction score of the nursing students was under average (2.75). There was significant difference between mean satisfaction scores of the first and last year students (respectively, 3.69 vs. 2.90 p=0.0001).

Conclusion: Level of nursing students' satisfaction get reduces after university entrance and during study years gradually.

Key words: Nursing student, motivation, satisfaction