ANKARA UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES STUDENTS’ REASONS FOR SELECTING MIDWIFERY AND NURSING DIVISIONS

University education not only creates an atmosphere where young people can communicate with the professionals but also helps them to socialize. In recent years, the rate has increased students choice of health professions. There are some researches proving that the choice in nursing and midwifery is directly related to demographic factors. The psychosocial factors in selection of professional education is also important. This study is planned for defining the selection reasons of midwifery and nursing as a profession and for determining the differences of this selections according to years. All first year students studied at Ankara University Faculty of Science Midwifery and Nursing Department are the population of this study. Unselected sample of the study, all students enrolled in the study. The data were collected by the questionnaire. Between 1999-2002 and 2005-2008, as the reason for choosing education in midwifery and nursing students, the top three reasons are: “ the “adequate mark”, “job opportunity” and “the will to help people”. That order does not differ for midwifery students but in 1999-2002 the proportions of these reasons for nursing students are: “adequate mark” (41.7%), “the will to help people” (28.2%) and “job opportunity” (%14.4); the order of these proportions changed between 2005-2008 and became: “job opportunity” (40.0%), “the will to help people” (26.0%) and “the adequate mark that they get in ÖSS” (15.2%). With this study we found out that the order of the selection reasons for midwifery students didn’t change between 1999-2002 and 2005-2008 but it has changed for nursing students