Nursing students' prosocial motivation: does it predict professional commitment and involvement in the job?

AIM: This study investigated how prosocial motivation reported by nursing students in their final year of academic studies relates to career commitment and job involvement three years after graduation. BACKGROUND: Most studies investigating nurses' prosocial motivation for choosing the nursing profession examine only their prosocial motivation for entering nursing training; they do not investigate whether this motivation is associated with job involvement or commitment to the profession. DESIGN: A longitudinal survey design was used. METHOD: The present longitudinal study included 160 nurses. In their final academic year of spring 2007, the nurses received a questionnaire about their motivation for entering nursing. Three years after graduation, spring 2010, they received another questionnaire about their level of job involvement and career commitment. RESULTS: The results showed that prosocial motivation measured in their last academic year was related to career commitment three years after graduation, but unrelated to job involvement. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that prosocial motivation is important in identifying with the profession but not necessarily for personal involvement in the job. The study gives important knowledge on how a commonly reported motivation for entering nursing relates to the nurses' attitudes about their work life.