Metaphor analysis of the perceptions of nursing students about emergency medicine nursing

Objective: Emergency medicine nurses are healthcare professionals who provide appropriate nursing care to patients/injured people of all age groups who have not been diagnosed yet and are in urgent need of medical intervention. The aim of this study is to reveal the nursing students' perspectives on emergency medicine nursing through metaphors. Determining how emergency medicine nursing is perceived will contribute to the identification of problems, a better analysis of the profession, and the development of emergency medicine nursing. Material and Method: The study population consists of first-, second-, third-, and fourth-years students studying at the Nursing Department of Gaziosmanpaşa University, Faculty of Health Sciences in the 2018-1019 academic year. The sample of the study involves 200 students. This is descriptive research designed with the method of metaphor analysis, one of the qualitative research methods. The participants were selected via the method of purposeful sampling. The study data were obtained by a semi-structured questionnaire consisting of two parts developed by the researchers. The first part of the semi-structured questionnaire contains questions meant to record the participants' personal data. In the second part, statements like "Emergency medicine nursing is like... Because..." are given. The content analysis technique was used to analyze and interpret the study data. The main data source in the study were the metaphors produced by the students and their reasons. Results: The participants produced 182 meaningful metaphors related to the concept of "emergency medicine nursing". The most frequently repeated metaphors were ant (f = 13), bee (f = 11), Khidr (f = 8), mother (f = 8), and lifeguard (f = 7). The metaphors produced were examined in terms of their common characteristics and classified under six different conceptual categories. These categories are as follows: emergency medicine nursing in terms of the features to be possessed (f = 59), emergency medicine nursing in terms of its negative aspects and difficulties (f = 39), emergency medicine nursing in terms of its importance (f = 33), emergency medicine nursing in terms of functioning and the working environment (f = 20), and emergency medicine nursing as a means of social support (f = 31). The metaphors produced by the students were mostly gathered in the category of "emergency medicine nursing in terms of the features to be possessed". The "emergency medicine nursing in terms of its negative aspects and difficulties" category ranked second. The views of the first-year students focused on the "emergency medicine nursing in terms of its negative aspects and difficulties" category; the second and third-year students on the "emergency medicine nursing in terms of the features to be possessed" category; the fourth-year students on the "emergency medicine nursing in terms of its importance" category. When asked "Would you like to work in the emergency room after graduation?", the majority of students (n = 182) included in the research answered, "Yes" (= 73.1%). Conclusion: We observed that the metaphors produced by the nursing students focused on the characteristics of emergency medicine nurses, the basic duties of emergency medicine nurses, and the professional difficulties of emergency medicine nursing. The examination of the conceptual categories revealed no significant difference in terms of the gender of the participants. We noticed that the distribution of the conceptual categories differed according to the class level of the students. In conclusion, although nursing students think that emergency nursing is a difficult and tiring profession, their perspectives towards emergency nursing have been found to be positive.