INSIGHTS REGARDING PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT AMONG 1ST-YEAR GRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS - A STRUCTURED EDUCATION PROTOCOL

Background:Students personality development is a felt need in our newly built tertiary health care system. There is a definite and vital role of professionalism based on personality development programs, especially in their early adjustment, understanding of the medical stream, and more importantly helping them to grow more effectively in all spheres of life and to actualize their inherent potential. Objectives:This study was conducted to determine the knowledge aboutpersonality development among 1st – year graduate nursing students. Methods:A pre-experimental study with one group pre-test and post-test design was undertaken to conduct this study from 02.05.2016 to 12.07.2016 using a purposive sampling technique. A total of 60 1st year nursing students participated in the study through a structured knowledge questionnaire. Data was collected through pen and paper and exported to SPSS version 20.0 for further analysis. The descriptive statistics were presented with mean standard deviation, frequency, and percentage. The data were analyzed using a paired t-test. The chi-square analysis was used to check the association. Results:Results of the study revealed that in the pre-test level 45(75%) of the participants had inadequate knowledge, 15(25%) of them had moderate knowledge and none of the participants were having adequate knowledge. whereas after the intervention majority 49(81.7%) of the participants had adequate knowledge, 11(18.3%) of them had moderate knowledge and none of the study participants had inadequate knowledge regarding personality development. The paired t test was carried out and it was found significant at p<0.05 level in age and knowledge level (χ2=1.958, df=1). Furthermore, the association between gender and knowledge (χ2=4.107, df=1) and previous knowledge regarding personality development (χ2= 7.907, df=1) were also found to be statistically significant. Conclusion:Our data suggest that 1st year graduate nurses have significantly less knowledge regarding personality development. so, it is very important to make sure that the graduate nursing students must know about personality development as they are the backbone of healthcare system around the world.