Abstract

Background: Studying nursing students' opinions could be a useful guide for the formation of their professional
role as well as their education and training.
Aim: The present study's aim is to examine nurse students' opinion, beliefs and attitude regarding the concepts
of health, health care, health education, health ethics, illness, safety in health care and quality in health care, in
an educational environment which promotes cooperative activities in class.
Methodology: Seventy four nurse students of the University of Peloponnese participated in the present study
during the winter semester of 2008-2009. They were asked to describe shortly the meaning of the study concepts,
writing down their opinion on a questionnaire that included six questions. Their answers were evaluated using
the method of content analysis and sorted to exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories.
Results: Nursing Students were asked to describe the meaning of the concept of health, health care, health
education, health ethics, illness, safety in health care and quality in health care. The result of the students'
opinion reveals the way they conceive their professional role, their education and their attitude in real working
conditions and, therefore, the quality of the services they provide and how well prepared they are to demand and
to put in a claim for the quality in health care.
Conclusions: Further empirical research could aim to replicate or contradict these findings, using a larger sample
and recruiting more university departments.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.