Professional commitment and attributional style of medical-college nursing students in China: A cross-sectional study

Abstract Background The persistent shortage of nurses has become a common phenomenon around the world. Nursing students' professional commitment affects their decision to choose nursing as a professional career. However, there is little knowledge about the professional commitment of nursing students, especially its relationship with attributional style. Objectives To explore the professional commitment of nursing students and to identify the role of attributional style on nursing students' professional commitment. Design Cross-sectional study design. Settings and Participants This study was conducted at three different medical colleges in Jinan, Shandong Province, China and included 1230 nursing students. A total of 1223 valid questionnaires were returned, yielding a response rate of 99%. Methods The Professional Commitment Scale and the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale (MMCS) were used to investigate nursing students' professional commitment and attributional style. Basic demographic information about the nursing students was collected. Stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the data. Results The mean scores on the Professional Commitment Scale were 3.54 ± 5.29 (mean ± SD). Professional commitment of first year students was higher than that of second year students. Their residence affected their affective commitment, ideal commitment, and continuance commitment which were the sub-dimensions of professional commitment. Effort and ability attribution positively influenced professional commitment; however, context attribution negatively influenced it. Conclusions It is imperative to take effective measures to improve nursing students' professional commitment. Our findings indicated that attributional style had a significant effect on professional commitment; thus, effort and ability attribution need to be emphasized.