An exploration of political awareness amongst a cohort of all field nursing/midwifery students, in one university in Northern Ireland - Phase 2

BACKGROUND The literature suggests nursing and midwifery students often hold negative perceptions about the role of politics in nursing. However as healthcare involves the allocation of scarce resources nurses operate in a... [ view full abstract ]

BACKGROUND
The literature suggests nursing and midwifery students often hold negative perceptions about the role of politics in nursing. However as healthcare involves the allocation of scarce resources nurses operate in a highly political context, thus nursing knowledge and practice should have a political dimension (Maslin-Prothero and Masterson, 2002). This includes an imperative to contribute meaningfully to health policy-making to improve public health. Equipping nurses/midwifes with the requisite knowledge, understanding and skills for this arguably involves developing political awareness at the undergraduate level. However little is known about how to structure political education for nursing/midwifery students, to facilitate this.

Aims and Objectives
This study aims to explore nursing/midwifery student’s perceptions of the role of politics as they experience the academic and clinical components of an undergraduate degree programme, at four time points. This paper will discuss data analysis from time point two, which is at the end of year 1 of the programme.


METHODS
A cross sectional longitudinal study design was used and data was collected using a self-completion questionnaire, based on questions from the EUYOUPART and Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys. A pilot study was undertaken and ethical approval was granted by the university school research ethics committee. The sample was a convenience sample of one cohort of all field nursing/midwifery students who had just commenced the degree programme (n=353). This study will report the findings from Time 2 (October 2014).
RESULTS
Data was analysed using SPSS 20.0. The findings indicated changes in student interest and disinterest, knowledge and awareness about politics from Time 1 to Time 2, timeframes. Political interest had increased by 3%, political knowledge had increased by 3% and the belief that nurses should be political active had increased by 7%, from 2013.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
These findings support further exploration of the factors which influence nursing/midwifery student’s political awareness and activity as they progress through the undergraduate degree programme. The inclusion of political education throughout the undergraduate nursing/midwifery curricula would also be advocated.