"I want to have stories too". Nursing students' views on nursing identity and reasons for choosing nursing as a career: A qualitative study

Aim: To understand and interpret nursing students' views on nursing identity and their reasons for choosing nursing as a career after participating in a face-to-face storytelling panel by academics. Background: Knowing nursing students' view of the profession and their thoughts about the profession, their roles and their future will guide nursing academics to develop evidence-based strategies that will enable participants to realize their own professional identities. Storytelling has an important role in creating and strengthening a strong professional identity among participants. Design: This study is a sample case study. Methods: This research was carried out in the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year with participants registered in nursing program at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a state university in the Central Anatolia Region of T & uuml;rkiye. The study was completed with one hundred ten participants. Five academics were invited to the panel at the Faculty of Health Sciences to share their experiences, stories and reasons for choosing nursing as a career through storytelling. The data were collected using the surveys, which includes five structured open ended questions and analyzed using descriptive analysis. Results: Five main themes emerged: 1. Participants' views on nursing profession; 2. Awareness of positive/ negative emotions related to the profession as a part of nursing stories and feeling that these emotions are experienced in the stories; 3. Changes in the perspective of the profession and sense of belonging to the profession as part of nursing stories; 4. Facilitators in choosing nursing as a career; and 5. Barriers to choosing nursing as a career. Conclusion: Providing participants with the chance to both listen to the real stories of academic nurses and to reflect on themselves through writing was a dynamic experience that motivated participants to understand their perceptions of nurses and nursing profession.