Nursing students who identify as men; efficacy and persistence.

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of nursing students who identify as men and its correlation with intent to complete their nursing program.

Background: Men are an underrepresented population in nursing, despite mandates to improve the diversity of the nursing profession. There also exists a nursing shortage, that is worsening as nurses retire or change professions. Improving the recruitment and retention of men in nursing could have a positive impact on both of these problems.

Design: Quantitative correlational research METHODS: The Belongingness Scale-Clinical Placement Experience instrument was used to measure efficacy and one item from the Undergraduate Nursing Intention Survey was used to measure the student's intent to complete their nursing program. A SurveyMonkey link was sent by the National Student Nursing Association to those students who identified in their database as men and were enrolled in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. The inclusion criteria required that the participants identified as a man, were a student in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and they had one or more years of clinical experience in their nursing program. Students who have completed one or more years of clinical experience, have completed all nursing pre-requisites and a portion of their nursing courses. At this point in a nursing program, the students' age would be 18 years of age or older. Inclusion criteria or 18 years of age or older would also make the consent process easier, as the study would not include a vulnerable population.

Results: There were 290 responses, 252 of which met inclusion criteria and completed the survey in its entirety. The dependent variable, student intent to complete their nursing program, was not normally distributed. For this reason, Spearman's correlation and eta squared were used for statistical evaluation. Spearman's correlation was significant at 0.05 and eta squared demonstrated effect size at 0.01, 0.06 and 0.14 for small, medium and large effect sizes, respectively. Spearman's rho, p=0.147, demonstrated a correlation between efficacy and student intent to complete their nursing program. The eta squared effect size was 0.96 which represented a large effect.

Conclusions: Nursing students who identify as men could demonstrate improved persistence in their nursing programs if effective interventions targeting efficacy were undertaken.