Preceptorship: the progression from student to staff nurse

Does Preceptorship improve confidence and competence in Newly Qualified Nurses: A systematic literature review

AIM

A systematic literature review to assess whether preceptorship improves confidence and competence in Newly Qualified Nurses.

BACKGROUND

Preceptorship was introduced into nursing in the United Kingdom in 1991 with the original aim to improve competence and confidence. This systematic review was undertaken to review the evidence of the impact of preceptorship on confidence and competence of nurses in their first year post qualifying.

DATA SOURCES

A comprehensive search of The British Nursing Index, CINAHL, Embase, Medline, PsycInfo, PyscArticles, Campbell Collaboration; Cochrane, HMIC, ERIC, ASSIA, Web of Science, Scopus, Scopus Conference, Web of Science Conferences; NHS Evidence, OpenGrey, National Technical, NINR, Opendoar, SSRN, Kings College London and the RCN was conducted.

METHODS

A PRISMA structured systematic review was carried out, 14 papers 4 mixed methods, 8 qualitative, 1 scoping review and 1 service development, published between 1996 and 2013 were critically reviewed, and data extracted using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Four themes were identified from a thematic analysis: measurement, knowledge and experience, support, and structure.

CONCLUSION

While one-to-one preceptorship does influence confidence and competence, Preceptorship Programmes has greater impact than the individual preceptor. Due to limited empirical research there is no concrete evidence that Preceptorship has a direct impact on confidence or competence. Further research into team preceptorship/choice of preceptors and what impacts on Newly Qualified Nurses confidence and competence is required.

An Evaluation of a Preceptorship Programme for Newly Qualified Occupational Therapists

Following the introduction of preceptorship as a requirement for most newly qualified practitioners in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, a preceptorship programme for occupational therapists was designed. This was the first of its kind within occupational therapy and was endorsed by the College of Occupational Therapists. Participation in preceptorship was intended to ease the transition of newly qualified occupational therapists.

This paper offers a definition of preceptorship for the profession in the United Kingdom and reports on a small qualitative study that evaluated the extent to which the interventions of the preceptorship programme ameliorated the challenges of transition. The evaluation was conducted within a realist framework. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews from four pairs of newly qualified occupational therapists and preceptors during the pilot year. The findings suggest that the preceptorship programme was successful in supporting the development of new practitioners and that implementation was optimised through strong leadership, a learning culture and positive supervision.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge relating to the transitional experience of occupational therapists and recommends changes to the programme to optimise its effectiveness for practice.

Professional roles and research utilization in paediatric care: newly graduated nurses experiences

The aim of the study was to describe and analyse how newly graduated nurses perceive themselves as professionals and their perceptions of barriers to research utilization when starting to work within paediatric care. The nurses were employed in two paediatric university hospitals in Sweden and had been working as staff nurses for 1-3 months. They answered two questionnaires: The Professional Self-Description Form and the Barriers Scale. The results showed that in the assessment of their professional level the highest scores were found in consideration, ambition and sensitivity, and the lowest scores in grasp of ideas, leadership and discrimination. In perceptions of research utilization (Barriers Scale), the items with the most common barriers were 'there is insufficient time on the job to implement new ideas', 'the nurse does not have time to read research' and 'the facilities are inadequate for implementation'. These results indicate that newly graduated nurses seem to be prepared for the nursing profession when it concerns themselves as human individuals but not so prepared for the practice in the real day-to-day work. The most common barriers in the research utilization were connected to the work organization and not to themselves as individuals. The evaluation of professional self, barriers to research utilization and the relationship between these aspects indicates a need for further investigation into the significant meaning of professional self and how this influences the implementation and use of research in everyday work. The results so far also raise the question of how to best support and develop newly graduated nurses in their professional role, to help them to be the highly competent nurses that we need in providing the best and evidence-based care to those who need it.