Date of Award:

5-1974

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Human Development and Family Studies

Department name when degree awarded

Family and Child Development

Committee Chair(s)

Carroll Lambert

Committee

Carroll Lambert

Committee

Don C. Carter

Committee

Jay A. Monson

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess children's perceptions of the nurse as they are related to children's age, the amount of contact children have had with nurses and children's sex.

An oral picture test, consisting of 10 photographs, was administered to 45 children in the Edith Bowen Elementary School at Utah State University. The children were interviewed about their perceptions of the nurses in each photograph and their responses were rated as being positive, negative or neutral.

The findings of this study indicate that although significant differences exist in children's perceptions of the nurse in terms of positive, negative and neutral responses, these differences are not due to the effects of the age of the children, the amount of contact they have had with nurses or the sex of the children.

The conclusions are that children's perceptions of the nurse are affected by a variable which was not tested in the present study and that children seem to reveal the more positive aspects of their feelings about nurses. The author suggests that children's negative feelings about nurses are too powerful to be verbalized and have been internalized by the children due to the influence of social pressure to conform.

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751352891fcdc330d49e13973da4c8a8

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