Relationship between faculty staff professionalism and nursing students’ values

Abstract

Background: The professional competencies of faculty staff are of great importance in shaping students' values, skills and attitudes that directly affect subsequent patient care. Objectives: to assay the level of faculty staff professionalism through investigating the level of professional competencies of faculty staff and behavior via students' perceptions, assessing nursing students' values, and finding the relationship between faculty staff professionalism and nursing students' values. Methods: A descriptive correlational study design was carried out with 186 nursing students from four levels in the Faculty of Nursing, Port Said University, Egypt. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Results: Faculty staff had a high level of competencies, including: personality and respectful professional relationships and communication (75.3%); planning and preparation, wellorganized teaching methods (72.0%); Activities of monitoring and giving feedback (72.6%), Scientific and professional competence (68.3%); and Methods of motivation and enhancement (67.7%). About half of students (51.6%) perceived that their faculty staff behave positively to a high level. Prominent values among nursing students are mercy, honesty and patience. Statistically significant relations were found between total faculty staff behavior scores, total faculty staff competencies scores, and total students' values scores, with statistically significant relations found for most items between faculty staff behaviors and competencies and students' values. Conclusions and recommendations: The present study found that values as mercy, honest and patience had a great influence by the faculty staff professional competencies and positive behavior. It is recommended to enhance the scientific and professional level of faculty staff by continuous training and scholarships. Faculty staff must pay attention to guide students toward positive behavior and stress the importance of personal and professional students' values, reflected in their clinical nursing practice.