Examining Post Graduation Career Plans of First and Fourth Grade Students in a Nursing Faculty

Aim: Study was performed at a nursing department of an university in İstanbul to determine first and forth grade nursing students’ career plans after graduation.

Method: Population of the study consisted of nursing students who were continuing their education at Nursing department of an University in Istanbul. Sample of study included 217 first (n=109) and fourth (n=108) grade nursing students who voluntarily attended and completed the survey which has 14 questions about sociodemographic status and occupational future plans. We used mean, percentil and chi-square tests for analysis.

Results: It was found that mean age of students 20.02±3.26 year, 50.2% of them at first grade, 49.8% of them at forth grade and 37.3% of their parents live in the Marmara Region. 57% of first grade students and 43% of forth grade students have chosen nursing profession in a concious way and 54.7% of first grade students and 45.3% of the forth grade students want to advance in nursing and attend to a master program in nursing. It is determined 53.3% of first grade and 46.7% of fourth grade students want to live in Istanbul in the future. It was found 83.3% of the students who want to work at preventive health care services and 88.2% of who want to be an instructor were forth grade nursing students. These results have statistically significant diff erence for forth grade students (p<0.05).

Conclusion: It has been determined that first grade students has chosen nursing profession more concious than fourth grade students, most of the students planing to finish only nursing education for the future and at the same time when they finished nursing education program they were planning to advance in nursing profession and continue to a master program in nursing. Especially forth grade students stated that they would like to work at preventive health services. Most of the students want to live in İstanbul and they want to contuniue their carrier in İstanbul and the primary reasons of this are having too many job and social opportunities in İstanbul.