The relationship between nurses' level of fondness for children and parental attitudes

Thiscross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted to determine the relationship between nurses' level of fondness for children and their parental attitudes. Its sample included 70 nurses with children between the ages of 2 and 6 who met the inclusion criteria, and worked at the Istanbul University of Health Sciences Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital, affiliated with the Istanbul Provincial Health Directorate. The data were collected using an information form, the Barnett Liking of Children Scale (BLOCS) and the Parental Attitude Scale (PAS). Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations), the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test and Spearman's correlation were used for data analysis. The results were analyzed at a 95% confidence interval with a p<0.05 threshold for significance. The nurses had high scores forfondness of children and showed democratic attitudes the most and authoritarian attitudes the least. Their level of fondness for children increased as their democratic attitude scores increased. The BLOCS scores of nurses who liked children were higher than the nurses who liked them only a little, and the overprotective attitude scores of nurses who worked with adults were lower than those in pediatric services. Their level of fondness for children and parental attitudes showed no significant relationship with the variables of their parents' attitudes, employment duration, number of children, educational background, age, family type, field of work, statements about their fondness of children and voluntary choice of profession. Keywords: fondness for children, nurses, parental attitudes