Transition to Practice Programs in Nursing: A Rapid Review

Background. Transition to practice can be exceed-ingly stressful for newly qualified nurses as they grap-ple with the reality shock of everyday practice as an RN. Transition to practice programs were implemented as a support strategy to ease the transition from stu-dent to RN and are designed to increase graduates' confidence and competence, improve their profession-al adjustment, and increase their retention. Method. This rapid review was framed by the Cochrane Meth-ods Rapid Review, supported by the PRISMA statement checklist, aiming to identify and describe the benefits of transition to practice programs for newly graduated RNs and their impact on workforce retention. Results. The literature revealed that mixed evidence exists re-garding the value and benefits of graduate nurse tran-sition programs to both the graduate and the health service. Conclusion. There are multiple inconsistencies across clinical settings, organizations, and preceptor-ship/mentoring training, among others, particularly in relation to duration of the program and the amount of formalized contact/study days. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2022;53(10):442-450.]

Automated summary

Transition to practice can be extremely stressful for newly qualified nurses. Transition to practice programs aim to ease this transition by providing support and training to increase graduates' confidence and competence, and improve their retention. However, there is mixed evidence regarding the value and benefits of these programs.