Nursing students' perceptions on community care and placement preference in Saudi Arabian universities: A multicenter cross-sectional study

Background: There is an increasing shortage of highly educated community nurses; only a small number of nursing students choose to work in the community.Objectives: To understand the perception among nursing students in Saudi Arabia about working in the com-munity and where they intend to pursue their careers.Design: A quantitative cross-sectional design. Settings and participants: A convenience sample of undergraduate students enrolled in their first to final years of a bachelor's degree program at three Saudi Arabian universities.Methods: Data were collected from September-December 2022 using the 'Scale on Community Care Perceptions', which included demographic questions and measures reflecting their impressions of a community care place-ment, a community care career, and their current placement preferences. Results: In total, 439 students completed the online questionnaire. Nursing students' community care feelings (affective component), expectations, and regards as a future profession were moderately positive with a mean of 6.68 (1-10 scale; negative-positive perceptions). Regarding placement preference, many students chose general hospitals (N = 212, 48.30 %); a small number chose community care (N = 77, 17.54 %). The positive choice of respondents was influenced by the various technical nursing skills required (N = 212, 10.6 %), enjoyable re-lationships with patients (N = 211, 10.5 %), and many opportunities for advancement (N = 169, 8.4 %). Furthermore, students' placement preferences were significantly predicted by their expectations of placement and future professions in community care (F = 95.24, p < 0.01, R2 = 0.30). A significant difference was also found among their preferences in terms of the level of education and the experience of family and friends working in the community (p < 0.01).Conclusion: Community care is an undervalued career choice among nursing students in Saudi Arabia. To bolster nursing students to prefer this career path, nursing schools, in coordination with local authorities, must formulate and implement a clearly defined career development plan that allows them to fully immerse them-selves in community care activities.