Role ambiguity in nursing: Undergraduate students’ struggle for direction

An experience common to many undergraduate nursing students, particularly whilst on placement in the clinical area, is a sense of aimlessness, lack of direction and standard role, and an overall ambiguity about what nursing is and does. Research in the nursing literature contributes to and supports the concept of the lack of clarity of the nursing role. Whilst the discourse of nursing is diverse and covers many aspects of nursing, a number of core issues may be seen to emerge. These contribute to form a concept that may be identified as the ambiguity of nursing. This paper identifies those issues and represents this concept of role ambiguity. These issues include the concept of caring and the apparent lack of clarity over what this actually is in a nursing context.