Knowledge Bank

Few studies have focused on college students’ attitudes concerning abortion. No published studies were found that addressed baccalaureate nursing students’ attitudes. This is an initial effort to investigate nursing students’ attitudes concerning abortion. The research questions were:1) what are baccalaureate nursing students’ attitudes concerning abortion? and 2) is there a difference between the attitudes concerning abortion of sophomore, junior, and senior level students? A cross-sectional, cohort comparison, descriptive design was used to study a sample of baccalaureate nursing students at Ohio State. After obtaining exemption from the IRB, a cover letter and survey, developed by the investigator, were placed in the mailboxes of the 418 baccalaureate students in the College of Nursing. The actual sample was 110 students who returned completed surveys. The Abortion Attitude Survey instrument is comprised of 17 Likert-type items and 10 questions pertaining to background information of the participants.
The sample was predominantly white, females under 25 years of age, which is representative of the baccalaureate study body in the College of Nursing. Based on 13 of the 15 items in the survey, the findings indicated that the sample had an overall pro-life attitude concerning abortion. The two items for which the participants’ scores indicated a pro-abortion attitude were if the female’s health was in danger or if she had been raped. The only difference found between the three levels of students was for the item pertaining to including the male responsible for the pregnancy in the decision to terminate the pregnancy. Sophomore students had a significantly higher mean for this item than the junior level participants, while the senior level students’ item mean did not differ from that of the sophomore and junior level participants. Overall the sophomore, junior, and senior students were similar in regard to their primarily pro-life attitudes concerning abortion.