Aim: This study was conducted to evaluate the occupational professionalism of nurses working in surgical wards.
Method: This cross-sectional study was performed with 179 nurses working in surgical wards of university and ministry of health hospitals of a province in Zonguldak. Data were collected by survey form and Inventory of Professional Attitudes at Occupation developed by Erbil and Bakır. Data were evaluated using number, percentage, mean, Kruskal-Wallis, student t and one way Anova tests.
Results: It was determined that the mean age of the nurses was 29.48, 93.3% of them were female, 48.6 %had a baccalaureate degree in nursing, and 25.7 % had worked as an operating room nurse, half of nurses (51.4%) had worked on the surgical wards for 1-4 years. It was determined that nurses who loved their profession (p=0.003), believed that they could completely work as nurses (p=0.001), who satisfied from their salaries (p=0.001), accepted that they were adequate of opportunities in hospital (p=0.02) obtained higher scores from the Inventory of Professional Attitudes at Occupation. Nurses stated that shortage of staff (24.7%) and materials (10.6%) on wards, and irregularities in the task-sharing (10.6%) are affected the professionalism of nurses.
Conclusion: This study shows that opinions of surgical nurses about occupation affect the professionalism of nurses.