Envy in a nurse education community

The definition of envy is based on views of anthropology, sociology, psychology and nursing science. According to these definitions, a nurse education community consists of shared values, customs and beliefs common in the nursing community. The purpose of this paper was to describe envy in the reciprocal relations between student nurses in a polytechnic of health and welfare in Finland. The sample consisted of 110 student nurses in one faculty of health and welfare in a Finnish polytechnic. They were selected from among the available (attending classes) students, who had been studying in the same group for 1-3 years in 1996. The response percentage was 85.5 (n=94). The data were processed by various statistical methods. The findings of envy in a nurse education community were defined through the student nurses' views of their sense of self, their relations with their fellow students, the objects of envy and also the influence of the lecturers. The ways of coping with envy were also identified. The most common object of envy was a fellow student who worked part-time while studying. Another object of envy consisted of fellow students successful in examinations and skills, such as listening, friendships and good ideas. The students coped with their envy by sharing their own success and by denying envy. These results highlight some essential points of envy in a nurse education community and underline the need for open discussion, as emotions and envy are important to understand as part of nurse education. If envy is not identified, it may cause learning problems and even problems in patient care.