Evaluation of the attitudes of nursing students about violence against women and a workshop

Individuals learn to be women or men with the social roles given in their own culture according to their biological sexes during their upbringing. These roles affect the individual's life and give direction. Gender roles cause gender inequality between women and men and gender-based discrimination. Gender roles bring discrimination to women in patriarchal societies. Violence is the fact that various definitions and researches have been carried out on the ongoing humanity. Violence is a condition that everyone can be exposed to and which should be recognized as a problem that is common in most countries, regardless of their state of development, which affects the health status of the individual and society. Violence against women is a universal health problem affecting women's lives, quality of life, basic rights and freedoms. The youth period is the most frequently encountered in the developed or developing countries with the student profile. Student nurses are trained to gain a contemporary attitude in terms of their professional roles in violence and violence in their education and training lives. However, some variables affect the attitudes of the student towards their professional roles in violence and violence against women. The student's gender, age, place of residence, witnessing of violence, etc. variables. The aim of this study is to evaluate the attitudes of nursing students on violence against women and to improve their sensitivity about violence against women through a workshop. The study was carried out at Afyon Kocatepe University, Afyon Health School Nursing Department. The data were collected using face-to-face interview technique and questionnaire form and Attitude towards Violence Scale. In the first phase of the study, a cross-sectional research was conducted with 315 students selected by simple random sampling method and the attitudes of nursing students about violence against women were evaluated. In the second phase of the study, 41 students with a single-group pretest-posttest half-experimental type were employed. The workshops lasted two full days and two weeks after this study, the posttest was applied to the same group. The data were analyzed in SPSS program and the level of statistical significance was accepted as 0.05. 78.7% of the students who participated in the first phase of the study are girls. The gender of the students, physical, verbal and economic violence in childhood affect their attitudes towards violence; family structure, place of residence, educational status of parents and income level of the family does not affect. It was found that the male students and the students who stated that they had frequently experienced physical, verbal and economic violence in the past were found to be more violent (p <0.05). In the second phase of the study, it was found that both pre-and post-test Attitude Towards Violence Scale scores of male students were higher than female students (p <0.05). There was a significant decrease in the posttest mean scores according to pretest mean scores (p <0.05). The results obtained from the study show that violence is a learned behavior and that workshops have a positive effect on students' attitudes towards violence. Considering that all feedback received from workshops is positive, it is recommended to include the subject in the nursing curriculum and to ensure that the students take part in different practices and activities in the fight against violence.