Evaluating the transition from nursing student to practicing nurse: An integrative review

The transition period from student nurse to novice nurse is a stressful time. Patient outcomes, healthcare organizations, the new nurse, and the nursing profession can be negatively affected if the transition from nursing student to novice nurse is not a positive and successful experience. Currently, there are numerous interventions aimed at easing the transition for the new nurse with just as many instruments used to evaluate the success of the interventions in doing so. This integrative review examined quantitative studies that evaluated the outcomes of interventions implemented to ease the transition from student to professional nurse. The seven articles that met the criteria for this review discussed four types of programs and one curriculum revision and collectively used 14 instruments to measure a total of 18 concepts related to new nurse transition. Despite the significance of the studies' results that indicate interventions to ease the transition-to-practice experience are beneficial and can have a positive impact on areas such as job satisfaction and retention, overall findings from this integrative review suggest the need for greater standardization of concepts that should be evaluated and the instruments used to determine if new nurses are successfully transitioning into professional nursing.