Student nurses' specialty choice: the influence of personality and education

Before and after a nine week psychiatric-mental health (PMH) nursing program of their Diploma course, 51 second year student nurses completed a questionnaire on which they rated their interest in 14 nursing specialties. They also completed measures of personality and attitudes to psychiatric treatment. Factor analysis showed that students' initial specialty interests fell into three groups that were termed 'procedural', 'child/infant orientated', and 'action orientated'. After the PMH program, the popularity and interrelationships of specialty choice changed substantially. Community and psychiatric nursing became more popular, whereas some of the 'procedural' specialties became less so. Correlations showed that the more conservative nurses initially selected the more traditional nursing specialties, and there were statistically significant relationships between psychological defence style and specialty choice. These findings have implications for nursing specialty choice and recruitment.