Evaluation of the Relationship Between Nursing Students’ Dysfunctional Attitudes and Their Acceptance of Aesthetic Surgery

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between nursing students' dysfunctional attitudes and their acceptance of aesthetic surgery. The study was performed as a descriptive study with 105 second-year nursing students at a health sciences faculty located in the central Black Sea Region of Turkey from 1 November-to 30 December 2021. The Descriptive Characteristics Form, the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery, and the short-form Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale were used for the collection of the data. Data were analyzed by using the SPSS Statistics 23.0. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation), Mann-Whitney U, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kruskal-Wallis, and Pearson's correlation tests were used. It was found that the mean scores obtained from the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale and the short-form Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale were respectively 52.44±20.97 and 87.64±17.97 points. Moreover, it was ascertained that there was a statistically significant weak negative correlation between the students' dysfunctional attitudes and whether they accepted the aesthetic surgery (r= -0.281, p< 0.01). The nursing students have dysfunctional attitudes and acceptance of aesthetic surgery was above the medium level. Increasing dysfunctional attitude negatively affects the acceptance of aesthetic surgery. In light of this result, it is considered that, for raising awareness about the students' dysfunctional attitudes and improving them, it is important to support the students and it is necessary to inform them about aesthetic surgery. Nurse educators should provide students with additional education to identify dysfunctional attitudes. For this reason, it is recommended to include course contents that provide information about aesthetic surgery and dysfunctional attitudes in the nursing curriculum.