2025 Theses Doctoral

Nursing Students' Attitudes and Beliefs About Poverty After a Classroom Activity: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Giannettino, Katherine

​Social determinants of health (SDOH), the environmental conditions in which people are born, grow up, work, live, and age, contribute significantly to an individual's health. Poverty may be one of the most significant SDOH, as it often leads to health inequities. To better prepare future nurses to understand and address the health inequities associated with SDOH, the National League for Nursing has called for SDOH to be better integrated into the prelicensure nursing curriculum. According to the literature, most prelicensure nursing programs integrate SDOH into senior-level courses; however, there is a lack of studies discussing the importance of integrating SDOH into foundational-level prelicensure courses. This study explored the effect of a SDOH classroom activity on sophomore prelicensure nursing students' attitudes toward poverty and beliefs about the relationship between poverty and health.

​This multisite, pretest-posttest, quasi-experimental study took place at three private 4-year universities in the United States. A convenience sample of 123 students was obtained, with a final paired response of 98 students. Students' pre-post attitudes toward poverty were measured using the Attitude Toward Poverty Short Form (ATP-SF) and Beliefs About the Relationship Between Poverty and Health (BRPH) scale. The intervention group viewed/watched a fair-use YouTube video case study of three individuals and families experiencing poverty followed by a faculty-led structured debriefing. The comparison group read a paper transcript of the video case study followed by the same faculty-led structured debriefing.

​ Analysis of the paired responses revealed a statistically significant change in attitudes toward poverty from pretest to posttest for both groups; however, there were no differences between groups, indicating the type of case study did not affect ATP-SF scores. There was a statistically significant change on the ATP-SF Stigma subscale for both groups as well. Data from the BRPH was deemed unreliable, and an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Findings from this study suggest that exposure to a SDOH classroom activity may be a valuable teaching tool for improving attitudes toward poverty in sophomore prelicensure nursing students, particularly in terms of stigma.​