Care: The first priority of professional values from the perspective of Iranian

Background: All nurses from nursing students to the highest levels are expected to act professionally according to professional values. The aim of this study was to evaluate professional values from the perspective of nursing students of School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional survey, we investigated the professional values of the nursing profession among 366 Bachelor's degree nursing students selected through simple random sampling. A two-part questionnaire containing demographic features and the Nursing Professional Values Scale-Revised developed by Weis and Schank with 26 items in the Likert scale were used after translation and validation. Results: The mean total score of the students in this scale was 4.1. Considering the mean and SD of each domain of the scale, the participants gave a higher score to "caring" and a lower score to "activism." Simple linear regression analysis showed a significant relationship between the score of professional values and age (regression coefficient = 0.023, P = 0.013), grade point average (regression coefficient = 0.080, P = 0.050), and semester (regression coefficient = -0.098, P = 0.001). Conclusions: The present study showed that environmental factors, modeling from other professionals, and overt and covert training affected the students' perspective of professional values.