Motives for choosing and resigning from nursing by men and the definition of masculinity: a qualitative study

The aim of the study is to establish the main motives for choosing nursing by men in Poland and the results for leaving the profession.

Nursing is a profession less frequently chosen by men. On average, one person in ten working in nursing is a man, but in Poland this percentage is especially low, amounting to 1·8%.

Qualitative research with a grounded theory approach.

Individual semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The study included 17 licensed male nurses. Data were collected between January 2014-June 2015.

The study revealed the most common motives for choosing nursing as declared by men: vocation, interest in medicine, accident and pragmatic motivation. The men for whom hegemonic masculinity constitutes the point of reference more frequently emphasize their interest in medicine and the pragmatic reasons for choosing nursing; they also more frequently try to gain managerial positions and higher income. The most common reason for men leaving the nursing profession was low income.

Despite the common stereotype, men also choose nursing because of vocation and/or their willingness to help others, but they more frequently declare that chance was the direct reason for their choice of nursing, which helps reduce the dissonance associated with choosing a non-traditional male career path. Leaving the profession was associated with beliefs about its feminine dimension, but it seems that in Poland low income is a much more important reason for such a decision.