Undergraduate student nurses perceptions of health visiting as a future career choice

There is currently a shortage of health visitors in the UK due to attrition and a lack of new recruits to health visitor training. There has so far been very little research into why qualified nurses are not training to become health visitors. An online survey was carried out in one university to explore the perceptions of health visiting held by undergraduate nursing students. The results show a lack of knowledge about health visiting and some misconceptions, especially amongst mental health nursing students. Conclusions drawn from this are that undergraduate student nurses would benefit from further exposure to health visiting during their nursing programmes.