Factors influencing the healthcare programme selection of students in an Irish university

Background

Globally, there is a rapidly increasing proportion of women studying and practising healthcare. This has been accompanied by a reducing proportion of males in most healthcare professions. This has been a contributory factor to the decreasing health staffing due to the tendency of females to work fewer hours and leave their profession earlier. Considering the current shortage of healthcare workers, it is of utmost importance to determine the factors generating these choices, so that recruitment of a significant number of males is not missed. The main objective of this study was to ascertain differences between factors that influence men and women who are students in one Irish university.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with postgraduate and undergraduate Pharmacy, Nursing, Medicine, and Dentistry students. The interviews were then transcribed and a thematic analysis was applied to identify patterns and interrelationships in the data. Participants answered questions pertaining to the factors which influenced them to study healthcare.

Results

Fourteen students participated in recorded interviews, with 8 of them being women. The interviews lasted between 12 and 27 min (mean: 18 min). Four themes were identified: (1) student characteristics, (2) content interest needs, (3) perceived career characteristics, and (4) external encouragement. This study confirmed that there is a social perception of some healthcare professions as a women's profession. The factors that influence men and women to study healthcare differed in some ways; females were more drawn to careers by which they could use empathy, while males were more interested by career prospects.

Conclusions

This study offers insight into the decisions of students about their choice of healthcare profession. The study highlights factors that can be targeted by institutions wishing to increase the proportion of men or women in their professions. Using channels such as social media, school visits, and promotion of role models to demonstrate the variety of positions within each profession in terms of work-life balance, salary, career opportunity.