Knowledge and Attitudes of Undergraduate Nursing Students

Genetic screening is now integral to all aspects of human and biomedical science. Every final year undergraduate nursing student who represents the future first line health care provider in the 21st century is required to have an in-depth knowledge of the principles of human genetics and their application to a wide variety of clinical problems. A descriptive cross-sectional design with convenience sample of 34 final year undergraduate nursing students were recruited from the nursing program, School of Health Sciences of Universiti Sains Malaysia. The findings shows 65% had an adequate level of knowledge regarding PGS. The attitudes score indicates 62% of the respondents significantly more supportive of PGS. The results from simple linear regression analysis indicated that the attitudes score is significantly and linearly related with the knowledge score (R2=0.48, P<0.05) with 95% confidence. Hence, increasing knowledge score portrayed more supportive attitudes towards PGS. The study suggest that although the attitudes score is significantly and linearly related with the knowledge score, the future first line health care providers need to be better educated about genetics.