Employers from different medical institutions more so hospitals have enforced a dress code on their employees with a sole reason of being able to create a good impression and to portray professionalism. Therefore, most hospitals have come up with nurse uniforms, which are a dress code for nurses who play an integral role in hospitals. Majority of health professionals argues that the choice of nurse uniforms plays an important role in determining whether a client may choose a particular health institution over another. This is because the choice of nurse uniforms is believed to inspire client confidence and perception.

There has being a debate by health professionals on whether health institutions should adopt the all-white nurse uniforms, whereas another group of professionals thought otherwise. Not long ago, nurses were identified by the caps and the all-white nursing scrubs that they wore. Later, nurses adopted up to date trends and doing away with those outdated outfits. This up to date dressing code prompted an outcry from the patients as they were unable to distinguish the nurses from the patients. This prompted the bureaucrats to change the dressing code and nurses were mandated to dress all-white attire.

A renowned nurse expert Lucia Wocial argues that all-white nurse uniforms augur well with patients. In her report, Lucia argues that patients associate white dressed nurses with professionalism, know-how and care. However, the report does not necessarily recommend that nurses should be dressed in all-white uniforms.

Another area of concern is the uniform fabric. In order to prevent the spread of infections nurses have always used standard practices such as habitual hand washing practices. However, medical experts argue that infections may be transferred from one patient to the other through the nurse’s piece of clothing. Therefore, medical experts emphasize that caution should be taken when selecting nurse uniforms to ensure that the outfit does not expose the patients to infections, therefore, worsening their condition. Thus, when developing the desired dress codes for nurses, professionals should not only consider the color the cloth but also the material used to make the cloth.

A study carried out sometime ago revealed that patients have a different perception depending on the nurses’ appearance. This research titled the ‘perception of nurses’ summed up that nurses who appeared when dressed in decent scrubs uniforms were rated highly by patients and the patients viewed them as competent and knowledgeable. The other group of nurses who wore printed nurse uniforms, t-shirts or clothing showing exposed body parts they were regarded by patients as incompetent and not up to the task. Therefore, the study concluded that medical institutions should impose a dress code for all nurses even though it ought not to be necessarily white, but nurses should be dressed in decent attire that creates a positive perception and attitude from the patients. Other than the opinion of the patients, the nursing fraternity, should uphold decency and credibility in front of the patients in order to boost the patient’s confidence and optimism. Nurses should also be in possession of extra sets of uniforms due to the fact that their uniforms might be blemished with dirt in the course of duty thus the need to change the uniforms in case of such an occurrence.



Duke Vaughn is the author of this article on Medical Uniforms. Find more information on Nurse Uniforms here