Professional Development Support: What the Supported Newly Qualified Professional Nurses Have to Say?

Background

Newly qualified professional nurses, like other health professionals in South Africa, have an obligation to serve the remunerated community service in designated public health institutions for one year before obtaining final registration with the South African Nursing Council (SANC).

The objectives of community service, amongst others, are (1) to service public health institutions, especially in the rural areas with human resources and (2) to give the newly qualified health professionals an opportunity to enhance their clinical skills. They have to be guided and supported by those that they find in practice, in case of nurses, those will be the experienced professional nurses.

There is no formal induction and professional development support guidelines at national level, a few provinces have developed provincial guidelines and their implementation is still a challenge. The Human Resource (HR) department and staff development departments are tasked with the responsibility of inducting the newly qualified professional nurses in some health institutions, while in some provinces operational nurse managers have to provide the support and guidance or delegate the task to the experienced professional nurses in the unit. In some instances the newly qualified professional nurses receive no induction, orientation or any form of professional development support. They are expected to get off to a flying start.

Design and methodology: the presentation is part of a main study conducted by the researcher in 2014 -2015. The design of the main study is a mixed methods design of concurrent triangulation approach. In this part of the study, the newly qualified professional nurses participated in a survey, responding to a self-administered questionnaire. Section C of the questionnaire consisted of three open ended questions where the respondents were asked to air their views in writing.

Sampling:

The population were the newly qualified professional nurses in South Africa, who completed community service between June 2014 and June 2015. The sampling used for the survey was a systematic probability sampling. The researcher used the RaoSoft Survey Tools computer program to calculate the sample size. A total of three hundred and fifty (350) newly qualified professional nurses were invited to participate in the survey

 Data analysis: One hundred and twelve (112) questionnaires had responses to section C. The written views from the questionnaire were analysed for content qualitatively and the data yielded eighteen (18) codes, four (4) subthemes and two (2) themes.

The chosen theme is: Induction and professional development support experienced by the newly qualified professional nurses during community service

The subtheme for the presentation is: Positive aspects experienced by the newly qualified professional nurses in relation to induction and professional development support

Findings: despite the challenges in induction and professional development support during community service, there were newly qualified professional nurses who were supported and reported positively on that support.

Positive aspects include: appreciation of the warm welcome received; induction and orientation; feeling at ease; feelings of independence, growth and development; boosted confidence and enhancement of clinical competence; respect for the newly qualified professional nurse as a person; happy to have a choice of allocation areas; attendance of in-service training and short courses relevant to place of allocation; informal mentorship and leadership development activities.

Conclusion:

Well supported newly qualified professional nurses take less time to be integrated into practice than unsupported newly qualified professional nurses. They feel as part of the experienced nursing personnel and they are easy to work with, as they have enhanced clinical competence and the confidence to practice as professionals. They feel at ease as they are guided through-out their transition from student to professional. they also reported having a positive attitude towards their work.