Regulatory Standard 32 ban on adornments and professional self-concept of nursing professionals

To analyze the relationship of the ban on adornments imposed by Regulatory Standard 32 and workers' characteristics with the professional self-concept of nursing staff.

Cross-sectional analytic and quantitative study. Assessment instruments were the Professional Self-concept Scale and a questionnaire for sample characterization. The sample comprised 182 nursing professionals. Descriptive and inferential analysis was performed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0.

The average score on the Professional Self-concept Scale was 113.3 (±12.7). Most participants reported to miss wearing adornments at work. The participants who reported not to miss adornments exhibited higher self-concept, on average. We found statistically significant association between lack of adornments and factors accomplishment (p=0.01) and health (p=0.00), between job position and factor competence (p=0.00) and between time since graduation and factor health (p=0.01).

For the present sample professional self-concept was influenced by lack of adornments, time since graduation and job position.