Perceptions of Community Nursing: A Comparative View Between Students and Professionals Through a Mixed-Methods...

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Public Health
• Sociology of Professions

Background:

• Community nursing is vital for health equity but often overlooked in nursing education.
• A perception gap exists between nursing students and practicing community nurses regarding the profession's role and identity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare perceptions between first-year nursing students and practicing community nurses.
• To explore factors shaping professional identity within the community nursing setting.
• To inform strategies for strengthening the community nursing workforce.

Main Methods:

• Utilized non-probabilistic intentional sampling of 67 participants (48 students, 19 professionals).
• Employed a mixed-methods approach: Phase I used the SCOPE scale questionnaire; Phase II used Photovoice (photography and guided discussions).
• Integrated quantitative (descriptive/inferential statistics) and qualitative (participatory thematic analysis) data using joint displays and a "follow-the-thread" technique.

Main Results:

• Practicing nurses demonstrated significantly higher scores than students across all SCOPE domains and in asset-mapping knowledge (84.2% vs. 27.1%).
• Students' preference for hospital settings (89.6%) correlated with the theme "The invisible nurse," suggesting limited role model visibility impacts career choices.
• A "vocational dissonance" was observed in students, with high theoretical value for public health contrasting with lower affective engagement, unlike professionals' consolidated identity.

Conclusions:

• A significant perception disparity exists between nursing students and practicing community nurses.
• Professional identity in community nursing is influenced by the visibility of the role.
• Policy and curriculum reforms are essential to elevate the status of primary care nursing and ensure workforce sustainability.