Factors Influencing Nursing Students’ Decision to Choose the Nursing Education Program in Bulgaria

Abstract

The aim of this study was to establish the factors influencing nursing students’ decision to choose the nursing education program in Bulgaria. Methodology: An anonymous survey was carried out among 160 nursing students in March of 2016, using self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was prepared in order to achieve the aim of the study and asked for information about the demographic characteristics of the respondents, and 10 questions that asked students to evaluate on the scale of 1 to 5 (from “Completely agree” to “Completely disagree”) their choice and satisfaction with the decision to study Nursing. These questions were arrived at in brainstorming sessions with groups of 7 - 9 students and secondary information from numerous studies. Results were analyzed by descriptive statistics of the data, non-parametric and factor analysis, using the SPSS 17.0. Results: The results of the analysis showed that student motivation to enroll in this particular university program depends on four types of factors, which account for 59,30% of the studied variable. The motivating factors are interconnected, and have been grouped in the following way: F1 – Social and economic determinants, F2 – Quality of education, F3 – Market situation in the country, F4 – Opportunity to work abroad. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test was 0.601 (i.e. >0.5) and the Bartlett's test of sphericity was Sig.=0.00, which demonstrates the suitability of the factor analysis. Conclusion: The findings of this study provided valuable information regarding motivating factors which attract the current generation to join the nursing education program