Relation between Halls’ Professionalism Scale and nurses’ demographic characteristics

OBJECTIVE: Nursing Professionalism was measured by Hall's Professionalism Scale, consisting of 50 items. The scale was developed to measure the attitudes and ideologies held by professionals in various professional occupations by measuring five attitudinal constructs of professionalism, namely 'sense of calling to the field', 'autonomy', 'using a professional organisation as a major referent', 'belief in self-regulation', and 'belief in public service'. This study focussed on determining the practically significant differences that exist between the means of the five constructs of Hall's Professionalism Scale and certain demographic variables among nurses in South Africa. The 11-item demographic profile included the following variables: gender (1), age (2), age when becoming a professional nurse (3), undergraduate qualifications (4), marital status (5), number of children (6), employment sector (7), years' of nursing experience (8), international experience (9), employment status (10) and satisfaction with nursing as a career (11). RESULTS: Only (7/11) demographic profile variables had an association with one or more of the five Hall's Professionalism Scale constructs The variables included the following items: age (2), age when becoming a professional nurse (3), number of children (6), years of nursing experience (8), international experience (9), employment status (10), and satisfaction with nursing as a career (11).