The public's image of nursing as described to baccalaureate prenursing students

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of nursing's image by nonnursing students, professionals, and other nonnursing individuals. Because the image of nursing has been a long-standing problem for nurses, an indication of the overall effectiveness of various individual and group efforts to change the public's image of nursing over the last several years was examined. Content analysis was used to analyze 831 responses to determine the respondent's perceptions of nurses and the nursing profession. Results indicated that the majority of individuals who participated in the study believed that nursing is most closely associated with the concept of caring, even though the meaning and practice of nurse caring was defined very differently.