The purpose of this study was to identify the nursing images appearing in elementary school textbooks.

This study targeted 130 textbooks of 13 subjects under the 7th national curriculum for elementary schools as of December 2005. Nursing-related texts, photographs, and illustrations in the textbooks were analyzed by using a content analysis method. As for the textbook analysis, two coders thoroughly read the textbooks to record nursing-related content per coding paper, respectively.

The total number of nursing-related content appearing in 130 textbooks of 13 subjects was 70. More nursing-related content was exhibited in the photograph and illustration domain(N=57, 81.4%) than in the text domain(N=13, 18.6%). Nursing-related content(N=70) appeared in the order of nursing activities with 56(80.0%), nursing as a job with 10(14.3%), and others with 4(5.7%). As for the nursing image of nursing-related content, positive images weremost with 30(42.9%), followed by negative images with 21(30.0%), and neutral images with 19(27.1%).

Nursing-related content was dealt with too little, and dependent nursing activities such as medication, and assisting roles for doctor's examinations and treatments mainly appeared. Also, the main activity place was a hospital. To introduce proper and adequate nursing activities to the students, various types of nursing-related data and material should be distributed to front line schools, teachers, main authors, and publishing companies.