ERIC Number: EJ1036167
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Dec
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1382-4996
EISSN: N/A
Nursing, Pharmacy, or Medicine? Disgust Sensitivity Predicts Career Interest among Trainee Health Professionals
Consedine, Nathan S.; Yu, Tzu-Chieh; Windsor, John A.
Advances in Health Sciences Education, v18 n5 p997-1008 Dec 2013
Given global demand on health workforces, understanding student enrollment motivations are critical. Prior studies have concentrated on variation in career and lifestyle values; the current work evaluated the importance of disgust sensitivity in the prediction of health career interests. We argue that emotional proclivities may be important and that disgust sensitivity may help explain differential student interest in nursing, pharmacy, or medical careers. 303 first year students attending a required course in human behavior provided consent before completing questionnaires assessing: (1) demographics, (2) career intentions/interests, (3) traditional determinants of career intention/interest, and (4) dispositional disgust sensitivity. As expected, disgust sensitivity varied across the three majors, with those targeting medical careers being less sensitive than those interested in either nursing or pharmacy. As importantly, even when controlling for demographics and traditional career determinants, analyses showed that greater disgust sensitivity was associated with reduced odds of intended enrolment in pharmacy versus medicine or nursing but did not predict the distinction between nursing and medicine. The impact of disgust sensitivity on career interest was substantial and equivalent to established predictors of career intention. Disgust sensitivity may represent an important factor impacting the specific choices students make within the health professions, particular when students are choosing between careers involving greater and lesser degrees of exposure to the normative elicitors of disgust.
Descriptors: College Freshmen, Nursing, Nursing Education, Pharmacy, Medicine, Emotional Response, Negative Attitudes, Prediction, Career Choice, Questionnaires, Student Behavior, Student Motivation, Enrollment, Health Personnel, Trainees
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A