The relationship among BSN students' employment, educational, and health-related characteristics and semester grades: A multi-site study

Abstract Background While many nursing students work during clinical semesters, little is known about employment characteristics and relationships among employment, academic success and other variables. Purpose To describe the demographic, educational, and health-related characteristics of clinical nursing students and the relationships among employment, semester grades and other characteristics. Method Descriptive, correlational. Results Participants were BSN students (N = 1014) from four southern US universities who were 22.6 years old (SD = 4.6) and most likely to be Caucasian (N = 832, 82%) never married (N = 852, 84%) females (N = 886, 87%) with mean GPA of 2.97 (SD = 0.61). Most students (N = 670, 66%) reported semester employment averaging 16.7 (SD = 8.3) hours/week. Although no relationship was found between hours worked and semester GPA (r = −0.017, p = .588), race/ethnicity (F [2, 1003] = 19.87, p  Conclusion While employment status did not influence GPA, race/ethnicity and amount of reported sleep did. Additional research is needed to provide evidence-based advisement recommendations for employed students.