Men in nursing 2018

July 16-17, 2018

Gazi University, Turkey

Statement of the Problem: The nursing profession is the largest subgroup among health professionals. The professionalization

of nurses is one of the most significant and ongoing discussions. There is still many difficulties for men in choosing nursing as

a career. The purpose of this study is to identify the studies on male nurses in Turkey in the last ten years.

Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: This is a systematic literature review of scientific articles from 2008 to 2018.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline was used for protocols in this

review. Electronic databases were systematically searched to identify English and Turkish study reports about male nurses. A

literature search of databases included the Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane, Cumulative Index to Nursing

and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and Google Scholar was done by using keywords included “Male Nurses in Turkey”,

“Men in Nursing”, “Gender Differences in Nursing” and “Nursing in Turkey”. The articles were screened by two reviewers

independently for congruence with eligibility criteria and quality of included studies were assessed. Key results concerning the

issue were extracted and synthesized.

Findings: Nineteen studies were reviewed in this study, 3 qualitative and 16 quantitative methods. All studies described

opinions, perceptions and perceived barriers of nursing students, patients, informal caregivers of patients or other adults. The

study reports show that the attitudes and opinions of Turkish people about male nurses were positive in the majority of the

studies, but the disadvantages of male nurses are experienced around hegemonic masculinity.

Conclusion & Significance: Strategies aimed at increasing male nurses’ professional identities should have positive effects on

their professional outcomes. Professional empowerment is one of the most critical predictor of nursing career development.