NURSING GRADUATES’ PREPARATION TO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

The shortage of nurses to provide safe patient care in the future is a looming reality for healthcare systems in the United States. Healthcare faces an aging population, retiring experienced nurses, and higher acuity of patients seeking treatment. The first year of professional nursing is a period of acclimation and adjustment for new nursing graduates, often experiencing feelings of inadequacy, decreased self-efficacy, and incompetence leading to discontentment. Healthcare institutions have implemented various strategies such as transition to practice programs to help decrease challenges encountered and decrease turnover of new nurses entering the workforce while ensuring the safety of patients. The problem is there may be a disconnect between the skills learned in prelicensure nursing education, the transition to practice program, and the actual realities of the skills necessary to perform in the professional nursing role. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of new nursing graduates on their transition to practice program and the actual realities of professional nursing. Guided by a qualitative phenomenological design and linked to Benner's novice to expert theory, 12 new nursing graduates' experiences were captured through semi-structured face-to-face interviews to better understand the skills necessary for professional nursing practice and the barriers encountered entering the workforce. Three emergent themes were identified as communication, nursing foundation, and confidence, as expressed in interviews that gave voice to the participants regarding their experiences. This study has revealed that new nursing graduates found their experiences challengin