Self-care attitude changes of nursing students enrolled in a self-care curriculum--a longitudinal study

The purpose of this 3-year longitudinal study was to determine if nursing students' self-care attitudes change after being socialized through a curriculum based on Orem's Self-Care Deficit Theory. The sample consisted of 40 baccalaureate nursing students and 71 general university students who served as a control group. Pretest-posttest design was used employing the Linn-Lewis Self-Care Attitude Scale. On initial testing, nursing students had more positive attitudes toward self-care than the general university students, but the results were not significant. At the completion of the nursing curriculum, analysis of covariance on posttest mean scores indicated nursing students had significantly higher self-care scores (p less than .001).