Christina Aggar
The University of Sydney, Australia
Title: Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Transition to Professional Practice Program for New Graduate Registered Nurses in Community Healthcare
Biography
Biography: Christina Aggar
Abstract
Australia has an increasing nursing workforce shortage in community healthcare and there is a growing need to attract nurses to work in this area. Promoting community nursing as a credible career choice is one way of increasing the number of registered nurses working in the area. New graduate registered nurses in Australia have not had opportunities to transition directly from university into community settings, principally because programs to support this do not widely exist. In 2016, a 12-month pilot transition support program in Australia for new graduate registered nurses into community healthcare has been implemented. The program includes preceptorship, education, and support from a program coordinator. This pilot program is the first of its kind in Australia. The pimary objective of this study is to evaluate the new graduate nurses’ intention to stay in the community nursing workforce upon completion of this program. Secondary objectives include the determination of the necessary community nursing skill set for registered nurses; determination of the cost of the community transition program; and to explore the sustainability of the community transition program. The study is a quasi-experiment, mixed-methods, exploratory design. New graduate nurses in the community transition program will be compared to a cohort of new graudate nurses in acute-care transition programs. Data will be collected at 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months (follow-up). New graduate nurses, their preceptors, unit managers, nurse educators, and the community transition program coordinator will complete questionnaires and/or semi-structured interviews. Preliminary results will be presented.