REASONS FOR SELECTION OF NURSING PROFESSION IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Nursing is the backbone of health care delivery system. There are various factors which influence the choice of selecting nursing as profession. Objectives: (1) To find out the socio demographic profile of nurses working at Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital (GTTH) Lahore. (2) To explore the reasons for selection of this profession. Study design: A cross sectional descriptive study. Duration of study: From October 2009 to January 2010. Setting: GTTH, Lahore. Subjects and Methods: All the nurses working in Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital, Lahore are included in this study and their responses are obtained with a self administered questionnaire. Results: A total of 77 nurses participated in our study. The age distribution of these nurses has shown that a large number of nurses, 49 (63.6%) belonged to age group between 20 to 30 years.
There were 26 (33.8%) nurses who had done B. Sc nursing. About 72 nurses (93.5%) have monthly income more than Rs.10,000. Majority of them, 48 (62.3%) are unmarried. 41 (53.2%) of the nurses selected this profession due to their own personal interest, 15 nurses (19.5%) selected this profession due to their parental influence. 12 nurses (15.6%) selected this profession for serving humanity. 9(11.7%) selected this
profession to support their family. Approximately 25 nurses (32.5%) said that there are other family members working in the same profession. It was noted that out of these 25 nurses, 10 (40%) had their sisters in the same profession. Conclusions: Nursing forms the backbone of health care delivery system of a country. Decision makers in health sector need to understand that human resource development. Particularly Nursing
requires revolutionary changes. As Public health policy makers, it is imperative that we investigate the reasons for selection of nursing profession to attract and retain these important partners in health care provision.