Background: Despite increasing shortages of highly educated community nurses, far too few nursing students choose community care. This means that a strong societal problem is emerging that desperately needs resolution.Objectives: To acquire a solid understanding of the causes for the low popularity of community care by exploring first-year baccalaureate nursing students' perceptions of community care, their placement preferences, and theassumptions underlying these preferences.Design: A quantitative cross-sectional design.Settings: Six universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands.Participants: Nursing students in the first semester of their 4-year programme (n =1058).Methods: Data were collected in September–December 2014. The students completed the ‘Scale on Community Care Perceptions’ (SCOPE), consisting of demographic data and three subscales measuring the affective componentof community care perception, perceptions of a placement and a profession in community care, and students' current placement preferences. Descriptive statistics were used.Results: For a practice placement, 71.2% of first-year students prefer the general hospital and 5.4% community care, whereas 23.4% opt for another healthcare area. Students consider opportunities for advancement and enjoyable relationships with patients as most important for choosing a placement. Community care is perceived as a ‘low-status-field’ with many elderly patients, where students expect to find little variety in caregiving and few opportunities for advancement. Students' perceptions of the field are at odds with things they believe to be important for their placement.Conclusion: Due to misconceptions, students perceive community care as offering them few challenges. Strategies to positively influence students' perceptions of community nursing are urgently required to halt thedissonance between students' preference for the hospital and society's need for highly educated community nurses.
Recently, there has been an increased interest in the well-being of students in higher education. Despite the widespread consensus on the importance of student well-being, a clear definition continues to be lacking. This study qualitatively examined the student perspective on the topic through semi-structured interviews at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands (n = 27). A major recurring theme was well-being as a balance in the interplay between efforts directed towards studies and life beyond studies. This method of perceiving well- being deviates from theoretical definitions. Students mentioned various factors that influence their well-being. Responses ranged from personal and university related factors to external factors beyond their educational institution. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the well-being of students in higher education and provides suggestions for educational institutions, such as incorporating a holistic perspective on students and learning; and focus points for the development of policies and practices.
The aim of this study was to develop a valid instrument to measure student nurses’ perceptions of community care (SCOPE). DeVellis’ staged model for instrument development and validation was used. Scale construction of SCOPE was based on existing literature. Evaluation of its psychometric properties included exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis. After pilot-testing, 1062 bachelor nursing students from six institutions in the Netherlands (response rate 81%) took part in the study. SCOPE is a 35-item scale containing: background variables, 11 measuring the affective component, 5 measuring community care perception as a placement, 17 as a future profession, and 2 on the reasons underlying student preference. Principal axis factoring yielded two factors in the affective component scale reflecting ‘enjoyment’ and ‘utility’, two in the placement scale reflecting ‘learning possibilities’ and ‘personal satisfaction’, and four in the profession scale: ‘professional development’, ‘collaboration’, ‘caregiving’, and ‘complexity and workload’. Cronbach’s α of the complete scale was .892 and of the subscales .862, .696, and .810 respectively. SCOPE is a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring students’ perceptions of community care. By determining these perceptions, it becomes possible to positively influence them with targeted curriculum redesign, eventually contributing to decreasing the workforce shortage in community nursing.
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