Role Strain in Male Diploma Nursing Students Essay (Article Review)

Role Strain in Male Diploma Nursing Students Essay (Article Review)

Title of article

Role strain in male diploma nursing students: A descriptive quantitative study.

Author(s)

Charles R. Baker.

Quantitative Design

Descriptive.

Problem statement

People often need to comply with the perceived norms about their gender to completely accept their identity. Because nursing is often perceived as a female profession, male nurses might suffer from a role strain.

Purpose

To find out whether male nursing students experience role strain, and what factors it is connected to, in order to be able to address the problem.

Research question or hypothesis

The author provides four research questions, the first of which being 1) “Do male nursing students experience role strain?”; and the other three aimed at determining whether there is an association 2) “between age, amount of education, male sex-role characterization, and role strain”, 3) “between year of program and role strain”, and 4) “between sex-role category and role strain” among nursing students who are males (Baker, 2001, p. 378).

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Review of the literature

There is little literature related to the problem; the article utilizes 12 sources, most of which are theoretical literature. The research which most closely looked into role strain among men in the profession found out that experienced male RNs did not suffer from role strain (Egeland & Brown, 1988). Baker (2001), however, stresses that the recorded absence of role strain is likely to be the result of coping mechanisms developed by these men; had they not developed such mechanisms, they would probably have quitted the profession. Therefore, the study by Egeland and Brown (1988) does not indicate the absence of role strain in male nursing students or recently graduated male nurses.

Theory or theoretical framework used in the study

The author utilizes a sociological theoretical framework, according to which role strain consists of four elements; however, only one of them, the role conflict, is used; the role conflict is experienced by a person that is subjected to more than one inconsistent role expectations which cannot be fulfilled at the same time.

Population

Students of 15 Ontario community college nursing schools; one of these schools refused to take part, so only 14 schools participated.

Sample population

Male nursing students. 184 of 476 questionnaires were returned, which means the response rate was 39%.

Participants

Age range was 19-49, mean age=28.1, SD=6.8 years. 46% of respondents were first-year, 34% – second-year, and 19% – third-year students. According to BSRI, 17% of respondents were undifferentiated, 18% feminine, 24% androgynous, 41% masculine.

Have the subjects’ rights been ensured? Confidentiality?

The participation was voluntary and anonymous; the data was also treated confidentially.

Measurement tools

BSRI was employed to determine the sex-role category of respondents as they perceived it (Bem, 1981). The Total Role Strain Scale (TRSS) was utilized to determine the severity of role strain; it uses 35 statements which the respondents were to describe as true or false for them by using a 5-point Likert scale (Egeland & Brown, 1988).