The relationship between the voluntary motivation and behavior in nursing students

Objective:To investigate the status of the voluntary motivation and behavior, and its relationship in undergraduate nursing students.Methods:Seven hundred and ninety-two freshmen and junior undergraduate nursing students were investigated using the "voluntary motivation scale" and "voluntary behavior questionnaire" by the method of cluster sampling.Results:Five hundred and sixty-two(71%) students had participated in all kinds of volunteer service activities, 230 people(29%) had never participated in volunteer activities.Six dimensions scores of volunteer motivation scale from high to low in turn were the value expression(5.227), understanding knowledge(5.193), self enhancement(4.979), occupation career(4.766), self protection(4.247) and social communication(4.059).The scores of the value expression and understanding knowledge in nursing students from rural were higher than those in the students from city(P<0.01), the scores of the social communciation and occupation career in nursing students from rural were lower than the students from city(P<0.01).The scores of the value expression, understanding knowledge, self enhancement and volunteer motivation in the non-only children were higher than those in one child(P<0.05 to P<0.01).The scores of value expression and self enhancement in junior students were higher than those in sophomore and freshmen(P<0.05).The questionnaire score of voluntary behavior in freshman nursing students was the highest.The scores of the voluntary motivation, expression value, understanding knowledge and self enhancement in the junior nursing students were the highest.Correlation analysis showed that there were significantly positive correlation among the variables, the correlation coefficient of which was between 0.243 to 0.848(P<0.01).The multiple stepwise regression analysis showed that the social communication, self enhancement and voluntary motivation could predict the voluntary behavior.Conclusions:Voluntary motivation of nursing students has the pluralism tendency.Volunteer motivation has certain predictive effect on the voluntary behavior.The Communist Youth League in Colleges and Universities should focus on the development of voluntary service organizations, stimulate students to participate in voluntary service motivation, promote students to participate in various volunteer activities and cultivate the volunteer spirit of students.