Undergraduate nursing students’ knowledge and attitudes towards Primary Health Care

Abstract

This study aimed to assess undergraduate nursing students’ knowledge and attitudes toward Primary Health Care in Jordan. This study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional design, involving 157 nursing students from two private and two public universities in the central region of Jordan. It utilized an Arabic version of a self-administered online Primary Health Care Questionnaire. The findings indicated that the majority of students exhibited high knowledge (77%) and positive attitudes (97%); however, there was a significant difference between students’ knowledge, attitudes, and their socio-demographic factors. Moreover, the results revealed that demographic factors affect primary healthcare attitudes and knowledge, indicating that students’ perspectives concerning PHC can be influenced by demographic factors, including gender (B = 0.173), academic performance (B = 0.044), and intent to leave nursing in the future (B = 0.122) at a significance level (<0.05). Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that these demographic and academic factors significantly predicted the attitudes of undergraduate nursing students toward PHC in Jordan. Nursing students demonstrated high knowledge and positive attitudes toward primary healthcare services. Selected demographic characteristics were significantly associated with knowledge and attitudes, as supported by the statistical analysis. These findings highlight the importance of strengthening primary healthcare content and practical learning experiences within nursing education to support students’ preparedness for future community-based health promotion and disease-prevention roles.