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

Context and background Intrinsic to the nurse/midwife’s role is the imperative to contribute meaningfully to health policy-making, to improve public health. Equipping nurses/midwifes with the requisite knowledge,... [ view full abstract ]

Context and background

Intrinsic to the nurse/midwife’s role is the imperative to contribute meaningfully to health policy-making, to improve public health. Equipping nurses/midwifes with the requisite knowledge, understanding and skills for this 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. This situation appears to contribute to nurse's political invisibility at all levels, particularly at the national policy level.

Aim

The aim of this study was to explore factors which influence nursing/midwifery student’s political awareness and activity during an undergraduate degree programme, at four time points.

Methodology

A cross sectional 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 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 1 (October 2013).

Key Findings

A response rate of 68% was achieved (n=240) and data was analysed using SPSS 20.0. The findings indicated that 28% of students were interested in politics, compared to 71% who lacked interest, with midwifery students reporting higher levels of interest. Sources of political influence included teachers, friends and family. Only 15% of students reported a fair amount of political knowledge compared to 81% with not very much knowledge, although knowledge about Northern Ireland’s politics was almost twice that of Westminster.


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 in the undergraduate nursing/midwifery curricula would also be advocated.