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Learning Objective 1: Analyze newly graduated nurses’ difficulties to integrate into a clinical unit
Learning Objective 2: Describe and discuss ways to ease newly graduated nurses’ difficulties to work as a nurse
Methods: We held four research meetings at a clinical unit in an acute hospital. The meetings focused on identifying the difficulties experienced by NGNs when integrating into the clinical unit and developing strategies to counter these difficulties. One researcher described what was covered in the meetings, and the nurse manager who participated in the meetings confirmed the descriptive data. Research participants were 17 nurses including a nurse manager and two NGNs. This study was approved by the ethical committee of the first author’s institution.
Results: The results of data analysis indicated five difficulties experienced by NGNs and two problems related to the hospital or the unit. NGNs’ difficulties were an inability to fully ascertain the patient’s condition, poor time management, inaccurate self-evaluation of their own practices, lack of a sense of responsibility to patients, and having learning difficulties at the unit. The two problems related to the hospital or the unit were a lack of standardized teaching methods used by senior nurses, and inconsistency between the unit and the hospital’s approach in writing nursing records. To solve these problems, the hospital should revise its approach and use software on nursing skills to ensure that NGNs receive uniform instruction. At the clinical unit, it has been decided that NGNs will ‘shadow’ senior nurses after 10 months of employment to help overcome some of these difficulties.
Conclusion: The research meetings were a useful way to identify NGN’s difficulties, most of which related to nursing practice itself and to develop strategies to assist NGNs to integrate into a clinical unit. However, it is necessary to develop teaching methods that will help NGNs to improve their learning capabilities in their clinical unit.