Role deprivation in baccalaureate nursing students pre and post curriculum revision

This study documents that the Role Deprivation of senior generic baccalaureate nursing students (n = 194) in a newly revised conceptually based, 8-term, health-oriented curriculum was significantly greater (p less than .05) than the role deprivation of senior baccalaureate nursing students (n = 174) in the same school when the program was based on a 10-term, medical model, illness-oriented curriculum. Role deprivation was measured by the Corwin (1960) Role Conception-Role Deprivation (RC-RD) Scale which was used extensively by Kramer in her studies (1969, 1970, 1974) of nurse's adjustment to the hospital work world. In these studies, Kramer used role deprivation as an indirect measure of reality shock. Unresolved reality shock leads to anger, frustration, and disillusionment that eventually can lead to exit from the profession (Kramer, 1974). Kramer has demonstrated that changes in learning experiences in an educational program can affect new graduates' adaptation to the hospital work world.