Abstract:

This paper evaluates third year student nurses’ attitude towards research at Ndola school of nursing. Research has been described as a keystone of service delivery. What is the attitude of student nurses towards research?

Methodology: A non-experimental descriptive cross section study conducted among all (43) third year student nurses between 26^th march and 8^th April 2015. Convenient sampling was done. Semi-structured questionnaire used. Qualitative and quantitative data analyzed through Content analysis and Epi-data version 3.

Results: Eighty-six percent of the respondents were females, while 14% were males and 65.9% were aged 18-30 years. Findings revealed that 55% don’t like research and 72.7% had poor attitude. Problems encountered comprised; time consuming 57%, don’t know methodology 18%, difficult 16%, expensive 7% and 2% lacked interest. Additionally, 68% of respondents would conduct own research and 91% would utilize other people’s findings. However, 75% have never read a scientific journal. Suggestions are: allocation of more time, simply the content, introduce at degree level, improve access to computers and library at 47.7%,27.2%,13.6%, 6.8% and 4.5% respectively.

Discussion: Over 50% of respondents were uninterested in research due to factors like time consuming and minimal knowledge on methodology and poor attitude. However, they showed interest to conduct research at a later stage in their career. Therefore, there is need to employ social marketing strategies in research using public health communication tool.

Conclusion: Student nurses lack interest in research and their attitude is influenced by problems encountered, which should be changed through social marketing of research.

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