The nurses transmissions of the professional role to students in nursing education

In the reformed nursing education, introduced in Sweden in 1982, the emphasis is placed on nursing as the nurse's distinguishing characteristic. The profession comprises many coexisting functions, one of which is to transmit the professional role to the student of nursing. With the aim of acquiring knowledge concerning this transmission we analysed one topic of a questionnaire which was sent to the nurses at surgery clinics. This material was processed qualitatively. The answers crystallised into two categories discerning how the role is transmitted: (A) Conscious Approach, (B) Unconscious Approach. The results show that most of the nurses acted in a conscious manner, i.e. in a form of active influence on the students, in their transmission of the professional role. The unconscious approach, with a vague perception of, and therefore vague transmission of, the professional role is frequent.