Improving mental health of student and novice nurses to prevent dropout: A systematic review

To provide: (a) an overview of interventions aimed at improving mental health of student or novice nurses; and (b) an evaluation of their effectiveness on dropout-related outcomes.

Systematic review.

Research papers published between January 1971-February 2019 were identified from the following databases: Embase, Medline, PsycInfo, CINAHL, ERIC, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar.

We followed the procedures recommended by the Editorial Board of the Cochrane Collaboration Back Review Group. We included peer-reviewed articles with a quantitative research design, examining interventions aimed at improving mental health of student and novice nurses and their effect on dropout-related outcomes. The large variation in studies prohibited statistical pooling and a synthesis without meta-analysis of studies was performed.

We identified 21 studies with three areas of focus: managing stress or stressors (N = 4); facilitating the transition to nursing practice (N = 14); and a combined approach (N = 3). Five studies showed a statistically significant effect on dropout-related outcomes. The overall risk of bias was high.

A wide range of interventions are available, but the evidence for their effectiveness is limited. There is a need for high-quality studies in this field, preferably with a randomized controlled design.