Nurses’ Professional Image: Levels Determination and Ideas for Strengthening during Covid-19 Pandemic: Descriptive Study

Abstract

Background: Nurses are effective in changing the negative perceptions of society about the profession. Hence, it is important to determine the professional image levels of nurses and to determine their ideas for strengthening their professional image levels. Purpose: This study was carried out to determine the professional image levels of nurses and their ideas for strengthening their professional image during the Covid 19 period. Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted online. In the study, the snowball sampling method was used, and a total of 305 nurses participated between August 2020 and May 2021. Results: The study found that 67.8% of nurses were not satisfied with the view of society on the current nursing image, and 76.3% of nurses themselves were not satisfied with the current image of nursing. Suggestions to strengthen the image of nursing were: raising the education level (28.0%), the society, government, and administrators should value nursing (19%), and improving the salary and working conditions (17.8%). Regarding the relationship between ideas to strengthen nurses’ professional image and their professional image education subdimension scores, it was observed that the scores of those who suggested increasing nurses’ level of education were significantly higher than those who suggested improving their salaries and working conditions (p=0.016). Conclusion: In our study, it was determined that the image levels of nurses had increased compared to the pre-pandemic period. It was determined that nurses prioritised raising the education level in order to strengthen their image level.