Investigation of differences in xenophobia, prosociality level, and sociodemographic characteristics in nursing students

Abstract

AimsThis study aimed to examine differences in xenophobia, prosocial behavior tendency, and sociodemographic characteristics among nursing students.Materials & MethodsThe participants were 227 nursing students (29.1% male, 70.9% female) attending the nursing department in the spring semester of the 2019–2020 academic year. We used a personal identification form, xenophobia scale, and prosocial behavior tendency scale to collect the data.ResultsAmong the participants, 24.7% were in first year, 30.4% were in second year, 21.6% were in third year, and 23.3% were in fourth year. Female students had higher prosocial behavior disposition, altruistic, and submissive scores than their male counterparts. The second‐year students’ prosocial behavior scores were higher than those of the third‐year students. The male students’ hatred, humiliation, and xenophobia scores were higher than those of the female students.DiscussionThe xenophobia scores were higher in those with two living parents and lower in those whose mothers had secondary education. We used the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Shapiro–Wilk test, and graphical assessments to test the quantitative data's compliance with normal distribution. We also employed the Student's t‐test and one‐way analysis of variance for data showing a normal distribution and Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests for data showing non‐normal distribution. To evaluate the relationships among variables, we used the Pearson correlation analysis for normally distributed variables and Spearman's correlation analysis for non‐normally distributed variables.ConclusionWomen's prosocial behavior tendency total score was higher than men's, and men's xenophobia total score was higher than women's. There was a weak negative correlation between the positive behavior tendency and xenophobia total scores.