To determine the relationship of student and graduated nurses' cognitive distortions with professional self-esteem and perceptions of nursing

This descriptive study was conducted to determine the relationship of student's and graduated nurses' cognitive distortion with professional self-esteem, perception of nursing and the other factors which affect these concepts. The study was performed in a university hospital and a school of health. The universe of the study was constituted by 322 graduated nurses and 338 student nurses. Data were collected using the "Professional Self-Esteem Scale","Cognitive Distortions Scale", "Sociodemographic Form" and " Perceptions of Nursing Form". SPSS-16 statistics package was used during the evaluation of data. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, Krusskall Wallis test, One Way ANOVA test, t-test and chi-square test were applied in the statistical evaluation. Kolmogorow-Smirnov Normality Test was used to assess normality. Levene Test was used to determine the variance homogenety. he meanage of the graduated nurse participants was found 31.36 ± 6.89 and student nurses' age avarage was 20.99 ± 1.89. In this study the rate of female student nurses were 60.7 % and male student nurses' rate were 39.3%. Graduated nurses consisted of 94.4% female and 5.6% male. Student nurses' cognitive distortions was determined as "Negative self- perception" and "self blame". "Helplessness" and "hopelessness" were graduate nurses' cognitive distortions. Student's and graduated nurses' cognitive distortions affected their professional self esteem and perceptions of nursing. The student and graduated nurses identified the nursing concept as a metaphor of "making sacrifices". "Burnout expressions" were used by graduate nurses to state nursing but student nurses told "care" expressions for nursing. Both of groups stated that they would not choose the nursing profession again. Student and graduated nurses informed the opinion of "should be gained respectability to the profession". Due to the precenses of cognitive distortions of student and graduated nurses, training programmes are proposed to increase awereness. In addition to this, qualitative studies can be performed for more extensive results. Key Words: Nursing, Cognitive Distortions, Perception, Professional Self- Esteem, Self- Esteem