Student nurses' attitudes to social justice and poverty: An international comparison

In both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), health inequities are proving resistant to improvement. Nurses are ideally placed to advocate for social justice. It is therefore important that nurse education encourages awareness of the social determinants of health and equips students t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nurse education today 2019-09, Vol.80, p.59-66
Main Authors: Scheffer, Mariska M.J., Lasater, Kathie, Atherton, Iain M., Kyle, Richard G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude Change
Attitudes
Clinical training
Educational programs
Educational research
Health disparities
Health education
Health inequity
Health promotion
International comparisons
Multiple Regression Analysis
Nurses
Nursing education
Nursing Students
Poverty
Rural communities
Social determinants of health
Social factors
Social justice
Stigma
Student nurses
Students
Teaching
Undergraduate nursing education
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Summary:In both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), health inequities are proving resistant to improvement. Nurses are ideally placed to advocate for social justice. It is therefore important that nurse education encourages awareness of the social determinants of health and equips students to act to address health inequity. However, little is known about student nurses' attitudes to social justice and poverty and the impact of pedagogical strategies used to teach the determinants and patterns of health inequities. To assess and compare UK and US student nurses' attitudes towards social justice and poverty before and after learning about social determinants of health and health inequities. Cross-sectional study with embedded before and after design using validated measures. Two universities: one urban UK university and one US university with urban and rural campuses. 230 student nurses in the UK (n = 143) and US (n = 87) enrolled in courses teaching content including health inequities and social determinants of health. Student nurses generally disagreed with stigmatizing statements about people living in poverty and mostly agreed with statements promoting social justice. However, US students were significantly more likely to have positive attitudes towards both social justice (p = 0.001) and poverty (p 
ISSN:0260-6917
1532-2793
DOI:10.1016/j.nedt.2019.06.007