Undergraduate Military Nursing Students in the Civilian Classroom: An Integrative Review

BACKGROUND: Civilian baccalaureate nursing programs educate 100% of undergraduate military nursing students yet many faculty are unaware of the challenges and facilitators that Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines – who are on Active Duty, in the Reserves, in the Guard, retired, or veterans – encounter when they attend a Bachelors of Science in Nursing program. Consequently, nursing faculties vary in their experience as to how best to acclimatize military nursing students to the classroom.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this integrative review of the literature was to examine the current literature regarding military nursing students and to present best practice tips so that educators can become culturally competent to work with military undergraduates, especially when preparing veterans to transition from former military roles to health care careers.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: Multiple transition theories were explored but Jeffreys's (2015) Nursing Universal Retention and Success (NURS) Model was ultimately chosen to provide the conceptual framework for this integrative review because it is specific to nursing students and encompasses multiple factors that impact student success in undergraduate nursing programs.

METHODS: The integrative review of the literature was guided by the stages recommended by Whittemore and Knaf (2005) – 1) Problem Identification; 2) Literature Search; 3) Data Evaluation; 4) Data Analysis; and 5) Presentation – and was framed by the interaction of eight categories – student profile characteristics, student affective factors, academic factors, environmental factors, academic outcomes, psychological outcomes, outside surrounding factors, and professional integration factors – identified in Jeffreys's (2015) NURS Model. The literature search included articles published in English from 2005 to 2017; the electronic databases explored were CINAHL, Scopus, ERIC, and Education Source. Over 60 articles were included in the final sample. Intriguingly, the majority of the literature was found in non-nursing journals.

RESULTS: The integrative review of the literature revealed multiple valuable tips to successfully transition undergraduate military nursing students to the civilian classroom.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The significance of identifying the factors that challenge and/or facilitate a military nursing student’s transition to the civilian classroom is that the nursing pipeline will remain robust if military nursing students graduate on time and pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN® exam) on the first try.