New Graduate Nurse's Experiences of their Professional Readiness During Transition to Professional Roles

Transition from the student’s role to the professional role, as an important stage in the nursing career, is of considerable importance. Lack of readiness in new graduate nurses for transition to their professional roles and joining the clinical setting brings about unfavorable physical and psychological reactions that act as a barrier for adaptation to their new position. This study has been conducted to make an understanding of the new graduate nurses’ experiences about their own readiness to start their new roles as a professional nurse. This was a qualitative, phenomenological research, carried out with the participation of 9 new graduate nurses. Data collection was done through in-depth unstructured interview Dieklemann method was used for data analysis. Four themes emerged during data analysis: professional competency, self-esteem, colleagues’ expectation and emotional distress. The findings of this study, which were the lived experiences of the participants, indicated that most of them had experienced some degrees of lack of readiness for entering the new settings. It is suggested to revise the nursing curriculum and provide appropriate educational programs to help graduate nurses in getting ready for their new roles.