Professional Socialization of Nurses and Nursing Students: An Integrative Literature Review

Purpose: Professional socialization is the process by which people who enter a profession internalize or take in new knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, values, and ethical standards and make these a part of their professional identity (Mariet, 2016). An important aspect of nursing education is to prepare nursing students to become well socialized in their workplace. The purpose of this study is to explore current knowledge of professional socialization in nursing and to recommend directions for future education and research on professional socialization.

Methods:

Literature search strategy;Studies published from 2000 to July 2016 were searched in three electronic databases (Medline, CINAHL, and Web of Science). The search terms, ‘professional socialization’ OR ‘professional socialisation’ and ‘organizational socialization’ OR ‘organizational socialisation’ were used to search the title and text. MeSH terminology ‘socializaion’ was searched as well. The language of the searches was limited to English.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria;Articles addressing the aims of this study, nurse or nursing student socialization, were included in this study. Also, those dealing with inter-professionals, health professionals, midwives, or newcomers were included because they might include nurses or nursing students. The articles were limited to peer-reviewed primary studies. Therefore, review articles were excluded. Articles were excluded when subjects were animals, people with other occupations, patients, nursing faculty, pre-nurses, or licensed practical nurses. Unpublished manuscripts such as dissertations or presentation materials were excluded.

Study selection;The initial search found 5,586 articles; 4,655 articles were reviewed after duplicates were removed. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, another 3,342 were excluded after screening these on title. Next, 1,313 abstracts were reviewed and 65 studies were selected. The full text of these articles will be analyzed.

Data evaluation;The mixed methods appraisal tool (MMAT-2011 Version) (Pace et al., 2011) will be used for quality assessment of the chosen studies.

Data analysis;Studies will be divided into subgroups according to the study design and samples. Data will be extracted and coded from each study. Coded data will be clustered, contrasted, compared, and synthesized considering the relationships among codes.

Results: The results will provide insight into the current status of professional socialization in nursing.

Conclusion: We will discuss future perspectives on the professional socialization of nursing students.