The feelings of guilt and shame experienced by Nursing and Midwifery students

Feelings of guilt and shame might affect the abilities of nursing and midwifery students when fulfilling their roles assertively and with professional autonomy during the interdisciplinary care and treatment process. The present study was conducted in order to examine the feelings of guilt and shame experienced by nursing and midwifery students with respect to certain variables.

The population of this study, which had a cross-sectional design, comprised a total of 1002 students from three training locations: a school of nursing, the nursing program of a health vocational school, and the midwifery program of a health vocational school. From this population, 667 students were recruited to the study by a stratified random sampling method. Personal Information Forms and a Guilt-Shame Scale were used as data collection tools.

From amongst the students, 88.6% were women. The average age was 20.57 years; the mean scores of the guilt and shame subscales were 50.51 and 43.63, respectively. Statistically significant differences were observed between the guilt-shame scores of the students by the variants of gender, age, school, and year at school.

The present study concluded that midwifery and nursing students experience measurable feelings of guilt-shame and that the levels of guilt-shame had an impact on their targets regarding nursing/midwifery. Therefore, it is suggested that guidance programmes be established and that the related problems be resolved.