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Nurse satisfaction is important in nursing and has been linked to retention and lower turnover. With the need for more quality nursing personnel in response to the needs of the society, it is essential to evaluate factors such as satisfaction within the academic and practice partnership model of nursing education. Nursing academic and practice partnerships have shown to improve retention and decrease turnover and has been advocated as the way forward to address the anticipated nursing shortage. Barry University and Baptist Health South Florida Inc., (BHSF) Scholars Program nursing education partnership was developed to increase nursing student enrollment and produce quality nurses. One of the aims of the Scholars Program was to ease transition for nursing students into the BHSF system. There is evidence that satisfaction has been linked with educational program outcomes.
PurposeThe purpose of this scholarly research project was to evaluate the satisfaction level of nurses who attended the BHSF Inc, and Barry University’s Scholars Program.
Method The sample included nurses who had graduated, were working, and attended the program. Demographic data was collected on the sample. A cross-sectional descriptive non-experimental study surveyed nurses using a convenient sample (N=32) of nurses who attended the program from 2009-2014. A condensed survey from the Critical Care Nurse Internship Program Questionnaire (CCNIP), was used to evaluate the satisfaction level of nurse who attended the program.
Results There was a significant association between age and gender (Cramer’s V = 0.72, p<.001). Participants reported high level of satisfaction ranging from (49-90, M=5.47, SD 0.80) with the program overall, rated as very satisfied.
Conclusion The findings suggest that supportive structures with increased collaboration and partnerships within the Scholars Program contributed positively to the satisfaction of nurses. The findings support structures in the Barry University/BHSF Scholars Program academic partnership resulted in increased satisfaction.
Keywords: academia, practice partnership, collaboration, nurse satisfaction, nursing shortage.