Altruism levels of nursing students

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study planned to determine the altruism levels of the nursing students and the influencing factors. Research was conducted in the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Gaziantep, including 193 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th class students during the 2010-2011 academic year. In collection of the data; information form was used to determine the socio-demographic attributes of the nursing students, and Altruism Scale consisting of family, social, benevolence and responsibility sub-sections was used to determine the levels of altruism. In the study, the average age of the nursing students was 21.09 +/- 1.90, 68.4% was female, 62.2% of them was graduated from a general high school and 37.8% of them chose the department intentionally. When the altruism levels of the nursing students were assessed, it was found that the students perceived their families, relatives and selves highly benevolent in terms of family scale and got 18.18 +/- 3.94 points; their levels of participation to social activities were low in social terms and they got 14.62 +/- 4.07 points; their benevolence towards others was at mid-levels in terms of benevolence scale and they got 16.25 +/- 3.89 points; and their levels of taking responsibility and believing in others' taking responsibility were at mid-levels in terms of responsibility scale and they got 17.36 +/- 3.16 points. They were found to be altruists at above mid-levels according to the altruism level scores with 66.28 +/- 10.29 points. As a result, the altruism levels of the students were above mid-levels.