The Web Sites' Image of Nursing

The internet is a new communication media that has a profound effect on society within the past few years. The impact will continue to grow as more and more people gain access to the internet and start to appreciate the value within their personal and professional lives. The shortage of registered nurses, declining student enrollments, faculty shortages, and stereotypes of nurses are an impetus to market nursing services effectively and efficiently. This study analyzed the image of nursing on health care organization's web sites. Nursing web image assessment criteria was developed from perceptions of registered nurses during focus group sessions. Content analysis of hospital web sites was performed utilizing the nursing web image assessment criteria for measurement. Comparisons were made between nursing web image scores and magnet hospital status. Magnet hospitals were found to have higher nursing web image mean scores than compared with matched and paired non-magnet hospitals within the sample of the study. The results were reported and implications for the future were projected.