Abstract

Background and objective: observing professional behavior by nurses is very important because the highest level of caring for patients is done by this group. To have an effective medical relationship between the nurse and the patient, offering nursing services with professional behavior is necessary. this study aimed to compare the professional behavior of nursing students and employed nurses.  Methods: The present study is a descriptive cross-sectional study that clinical nursing students from the first year to last year were selected using census method and employed nurses in selected hospitals of Medical Sciences Faculty of Abadan were selected using quota sampling method. Overall, 376 people participated in this study and Data were collected by using a modified questionnaire "professional behavior of nurses" Gaz et al and finally analyzed by SPSS software. Results: The average score for the professional behavior of nursing students was 105.11 ± 15.44 from the total of 135 scores and for the clinical nurses, this was 112.48 ± 13.01 which shows a meaningful statistical difference (p = 0.001). Discussion and conclusion: The results showed that the average score of professional behavior of clinical nurses was higher than nursing students. According to the findings of this study, the promotion of the professional behavior of nursing students by improving the nursing education programs and providing good conditions for using the resources, making the nurses more familiar with their profession and employing the experienced professors for teaching the professional ethics are useful factors in rising the professional socialization level of nursing students.