Development of a Professional Profile for Enhancing Nursing Brand Image: A Scoping Review

The public often has a vague understanding of nursing roles, and even nursing professionals struggle to clearly articulate "what nursing is" or "what nurses do." To effectively build a nursing brand that differentiates itself from others, it is essential first to gain a deep understanding of the core characteristics of the nursing profession. A professional profile is a tool that captures the labels and characteristics of a target audience, helping to craft more precise brand strategies.

This study aims to conduct a scoping review of a professional profile to better understand its meaning in the nursing field.

A literature search was conducted in six databases-MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Open Dissertations, Academic Search Complete, ProQuest, and Google Scholar-from the earliest available date to January 2025.

A total of 43 articles were included. A professional profile of nursing represents a multidimensional, multi-attribute, and dynamically evolving system, encompassing four key dimensions: professional connotation, public perception, role positioning, and individual practice. The construction of a professional profile of nursing is based on both holistic and individual perspectives, guided by ontology, career development, learning, or work motivation.

A professional profile clarifies the fundamental characteristics of nursing as a profession, the positioning and responsibilities of nurses within multidisciplinary teams, and the roles of personal portfolios in supporting career development, aiming to change public stereotypes of nursing and enhance its brand image.

Findings suggest that policymakers should establish a unified and systematic framework to standardize the construction of a nursing professional profile and incorporate dynamic tracking of nurses' and the profession's development trajectories to support professional accreditation and career development. Future research can adopt a data-driven approach, leveraging knowledge graphs, and visualization technologies to analyze and present the core characteristics of the nursing profession.