Nursing students' perceptions and self-compassion levels towards mentally disabled children

Mentally retarded is an important health problem that is among the developmental disabilities and should be addressed in childhood. The interactions with healthcare professionals, especially with the official, are quite high at these prices. In order to provide compassionate care to mentally handicapped children, it is necessary to raise awareness of nurses from their student years and develop compassionate care skills. This research was conducted in a descriptive analytic type in order to examine the knowledge and self-compassion levels of nursing students towards mentally retarded children. The research was conducted with 380 student nurses who were educated at Al-Qadisiyah University, School of Nursing in the city of Al-Diwaniyah and agreed to participate in the research. Data was collected using the Personal Information Form, the Information Questionnaire for Mentally Retarded Individuals and the Self-Compassion Scale. In the analysis of the data, number, percentage, mean, descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, Mann Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis were used. Of the nursing students included in the study, 67.1% were women, 82.6% were between the ages of 18-24, 83.7% were single, 30.3% were in the second grade, and 72.9% were nuclear families. 92.9% of the students do not have a mentally retarded child in their family and 63.7% of them do not have a mentally retarded relative or neighbor. In the analysis, it was found that there was a statistically significant relationship between the ages of the students and their perceptions of mentally retarded children and their self-compassion levels (p<0.050). In addition, it was determined that the knowledge level of nursing students towards mentally retarded children was moderate and their self-compassion levels were high.