Determination of opinions about the profession and effectivefactors in choosing this profession of working practical nurse assistants and practical nursing program students

In the study, it was aimed to determine the opinions of working nurse assistants and students studying in the last year of private and state health vocational high schools studying in the nurse assistant program about the profession and the factors effective in the selection of this profession. The universe of the descriptive type of research consists of a private school and a public school providing nurse assistant education in Ankara, 8 state hospitals and 11 training and research hospitals in Ankara for students studying in the nurse assistant program, and a research universe for nurse assistants actively working. In the study, sample selection was not made, it was planned to include the entire universe in the sampling. The research was carried out with 115 senior students studying in the nurse assistant program in private and public vocational schools and three nurse assistants who are actively working in a health institution. In the collection of the data, a questionnaire form developed and prepared by the researcher from the existing literature was used. The socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, the factors affecting the choice of profession and their responses to the statements about their opinions about the profession were evaluated by average, frequency and percentage in the IBM SPSS 26.0 program and chi-square analyzes were applied. According to the findings obtained from the research, it was found that although 68.7% of the senior students studying in the nursing assistant program had a positive perspective on the nursing assistant profession, the rate of desire to choose another profession and to receive university education was high. It was determined that students and active nurse assistants did not know enough about the duties and responsibilities of the defined nurse assistant profession. It was found that approximately 4 out of every 10 students thought that the education they received would not be sufficient for their professional life. In line with the results of the research, it is thought that it is important to determine the current problems of nurse assistants and to develop solution suggestions.