Nursing attire: indicators of professionalism?

The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the effect that current nursing attire has on the image of the nursing profession. A number of nurses and a nonnurse were interviewed to determine how attire affected their perception of today's nurses. The two research questions were as follows: (1) is the changing dress of nurses projecting a negative image to the public? and (2) What components of a nurse's apparel indicate professionalism? Content analysis was performed on transcriptions from the tape-recorded responses of a purposeful sample of health care workers: 12 registered nurses, 1 bachelor of nursing student, and 1 layperson. The responses for the first research question were not directly addressed by the participants. However, one overall theme emerged, which was labeled "I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it." The main theme that emerged for the second research question was labeled "total package," with role identification and competency being related themes. As a result of this research, nursing administrators and other health care professionals could gain an understanding of the importance of nursing attire as an indicator of nursing professionalism. Future research needs to examine the same research questions with health care consumers in a variety of acute and community-based health care settings.