Although women still make up the majority of those who choose nursing as a profession, the representation of men in this field has increased as the demand for nurses has grown and more adults choose nursing as a second career. Caring behaviors, an integral part of nursing related to better patient outcomes, has traditionally been associated with women. This survey study explored male and female nursing students’ perceptions of caring behaviors and investigated whether stages of nursing education, age, previous health care work experience, parenthood, sibling status, length of nursing program, or ethnic category influence perceptions of caring behaviors in these students. Participants were associate degree nursing (ADN) students at three western US universities. Students responded anonymously online to an open-ended question as to how they demonstrated caring behaviors and completed the Caring Dimensions Inventory (CDI). Score for total CDI, individual CDI factor subscales regarding the technical, intimacy, support, unnecessary, and inappropriate aspects of nursing, and the Mokken subscale were evaluated. Of 160 responses, 147 were evaluable. Content analysis of responses to the open-ended question revealed seven interrelated categories: 1) competence, 2) communication, 3) patient education, 4) giving the best care possible, 5) nursing actions and interventions, 6) mode of behavior, and 7) miscellaneous. No significant effects of gender, number of semesters in an ADN program or demographic variables such as student age, years of previous health care experience, parenthood, sibling status, length of nursing program, or ethnic category were observed in perceptions of caring as measured by the total CDI and subscales. However, free-text question responses appeared to fit stereotypes of women as being more attuned to personal relationships and emotions, with more verbal skills and nuanced thinking, and of men as being more assertive, action-oriented, and more abstract in their thinking. These tendencies should be considered in designing nurse education programs to foster effective caring behaviors in both men and women.
