Background and purpose: Self-esteem is an important quality and a personality trait or an attribute that is considered as a specific requirement for Healthcare professionals (HCP) during their encounters with patients/caregivers, healthcare team members and hospital management. The objective of this study was to evaluate self-esteem among first-year nursing students. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 44 nursing students (5 male, 39 female) from two educational institutions who were recruited on convenient sampling. The survey instrument used in this study was Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (RSES) which was a 10-item self-report (4-point Likert) measure of global self-esteem. The factor-1 score of sum of five positive statements were termed as self-enhancement and the factor-2 score of five negative statements as self-derogation.Descriptive analysis was done using frequencies for each of the items and item-responses of the RSES and study participants’ demographic variables. Comparison of total scores and factor scores between institutions, age, gender and religion were done using independent t-test or one-way analysis of variance as applicable. All analyses were done at 95% confidence interval using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 for Windows.Results: Overall RSES total score was 14.25 ± 2.12 indicating that self-esteem levels were low. 23 (52.3%) students had low self-esteem and 21 (47.7%) students reported normal self-esteem. Overall factor-1 score was 8.56 ± 1.35 (57.12 ± 9.02%) and factor-2 score was 5.68 ± 1.34 (37.88 ± 8.95%). Students from institute-1 and femalegender had significantly (p<.05) higher scores of factor-2. Other comparisons of age and religion were not significant (p>.05). Conclusion: Overall levels of self-esteem were low in the study sample of nursing students. Institution and gender played an important role for self-derogation scores but not the age or religion.

Keywords: Self-esteem; Self-concept; Nursing profession; Nursing education; Personality development.