Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2013 November, 231(3)

Five Reasons for the Lack of Nursing Students' Motivation to Learn Public Health

YASUSHI KUDO,¹ SACHIKO HAYASHI,² EMIKO YOSHIMURA,³ MASASHI TSUNODA,⁴ AKIZUMI TSUTSUMI,⁵ AKITAKA SHIBUYA^1,6 and YOSHIHARU AIZAWA⁷

¹Department of Health Care Management, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan
²Faculty of Nursing, Mejiro University, Saitama, Saitama, Japan
³Kawasaki City College of Nursing, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan
⁴Department of Preventive Medicine, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan
⁵Department of Public Health, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan
⁶Department of Risk Management and Health Care Administration, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan
⁷The Kitasato Institute, Kitasato University, Tokyo, Japan

Prevention is better than cure. Public health plays an important role in promoting prevent medicine. To obtain the abilities to provide appropriate nursing services, learning public health is necessary for students who want to become registered nurses. When teachers teach public health to nursing students, it is important to motivate them to learn it. Therefore, we investigated the reasons for the lack of motivation to learn public health by conducting a questionnaire survey. The subjects were female nursing students in 29 vocational schools in Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures of Japan that allow graduation after a 3-year study period. We asked the students whether or not they had completed the subject of public health and analyzed those students who answered affirmatively. We analyzed 1,553 respondents whose average age was 22.6 ± 5.2 years (range, 18 to 45). Using factor analysis, we discovered the 5 reasons that lead to the lack of nursing students' motivation to learn public health: “Difficulties acquiring knowledge of public health,” “Inappropriate attitudes of public health teachers,” “Thinking lightly about the national examination in the field of public health,” “Lack of understanding the importance of learning public health,” and “Future plans that do not specialize in public health.” Using multiple linear regression analysis, these 5 reasons were significant predictors for the lack of students' motivation. Older students also had significantly less motivation to learn public health than did younger students. When teachers instruct their students, they should teach public health better with the present knowledge.

keywords —— learning motivation; nurse education; nursing student; public health; questionnaire

© 2013 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2013, 231, 179-186

Correspondence: Yasushi Kudo, Department of Health Care Management, Kitasato University School of Medicine, 1-15-1 Kitasato, Minami-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-0374, Japan.

e-mail: ykudo@med.kitasato-u.ac.jp