The recruitment of South Asian people into the nursing profession: a knowledge review

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a knowledge review, undertaken to identify potential barriers affecting the recruitment of British South Asian people into the nursing profession. The review identified eleven studies, which explored attitudes and levels of knowledge towards nursing within the British South Asian population. Many of these studies, although providing useful insights, have methodological limitations. Studies highlighted perceptions among the South Asian population of nursing as a low status and stressful occupation with unsociable working hours and low pay. Nursing members of the opposite sex was not acceptable to some individuals on religious grounds. Others, however, had no problem with this. The review highlights both similarities and differences in attitudes towards nursing amongst the British South Asian population and the majority white population. Factors such as the lack of exposure to positive role models and limited opportunities to gain an insight into the work of nurses suggest that South Asian people might be less likely to consider nursing as a career than their white counterparts. To gain a better understanding of views held towards nursing within this population however, more comparative studies are needed to take an account of diversity in terms of social class, gender, ethnicity and religion.