Professional confidence: How do new graduate nurses get it?

18^th International Conference on Nursing & Healthcare

December 05-07, 2016 Dallas, USA

Jennifer Ortiz

Suffolk County Community College, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Professional confidence is an essential trait for new graduate nurses to possess in order to provide safe and effective patient care in today�s complex hospital setting. However, many new graduates are entering the workforce without it and this remains to be explored. The purpose of this presentation is to explain how new graduate nurses accounted for their lack of professional confidence and how it developed during their first year of practice in the hospital setting. A qualitative research design was utilized to capture the lived experiences of new graduate nurses to gain an understanding of this phenomenon. Two face-to-face, individual interviews of 12 participants produced seven themes related to professional confidence and how it developed over the first year of practice. These themes include: Communication is huge, making mistakes, disconnect between school and practice, independence, relationship building, positive feedback is important, and gaining experience. These findings indicate that the development of professional confidence is a dynamic process that occurs throughout the first year of practice and new graduate nurses must experience both positive and negative circumstances in order to move towards the attainment of professional confidence. Knowing this, nurse educators in academia as well as in the hospital setting may better support the development of professional confidence both before and during the first year of practice.

Biography :

Email: ortizj@sunysuffolk.edu