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Volume 5, Issue 8(Suppl) J Nurs Care 2016
ISSN: 2167-1168 JNC, an open access journal
Page 44
Notes:
Euro Nursing 2016
October 17-19, 2016
conferenceseries.com
15th Euro Nursing & Medicare Summit
October 17-19, 2016 Rome, Italy
Saudi community perception of nursing as a profession
Hala Saied
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia
Nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers, and the nursing shortage is a global concern. Due to this shortage,
Saudi Arabia depends heavily on expatriate nurses from different countries. How the Saudi community perceives nursing
as a profession will affect the nursing recruitment and retention. The aim of this study was to explore the Saudi community
perception regarding nursing. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used to collect data from a convenience sample of
500 male and female Saudi participants. Two tools were developed by the investigator to collect the data: Demographic
characteristics questionnaire and the perception toward nursing questionnaire. The questionnaires were carefully constructed
and piloted with 20 participants, non-parametric test has been used to analyze the 29 item Likert scale that measure the
strength of the participants agreement which was used with one for strongly disagree and 5 for strongly agree. Most of the
participants (58%) were 20 to 40 years old. Slightly more than half of them (50.2%) had a Bachelor degree and 60.4% had a
family member or a friend working as a nurse. Overall, there was a positive perception about nursing among the majority of
the participants. They perceive nursing as a human, respected profession but it is not appreciated by the society. More than
half of the participants believed that Saudi nurses are better than foreign nurses and only 24% of the respondents think that
nursing conflict with the customs and traditions of the Saudi society. However, this positive perception of the participants was
not transmitted into a desire to join nursing. Improving nursing professions social position, prestige, working condition and
salaries might encourage more applicants and young generations to enter the nursing profession
Biography
Hala Saied has completed her PhD from Case Western Reserve University, USA. She is working as an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Research Unit at the
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia.
Hala Saied, J Nurs Care 2016, 5:8(Suppl)