gms | German Medical Science

Background and Purpose: Initial professional competence (PC) enables a nursing career start. The transition from a nursing student to a qualified nurse is significant as it may impact to the future career and retention throughout the nursing career. The purpose of this international research project is to assess and compare the development of PC, to analyse the factors (individual, educational, organisational and value-based) connected to PC and model factors promoting the development of PC and a successful transition.

Methods: The design is a prospective longitudinal cohort survey. Data is collected from educational institutions and health care organizations in five European countries: Finland, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania and Spain. The first data is collected in 2018 with structured questionnaires from graduating nursing students at the final stage of their studies (N=2500, N=500/country), nursing administrators (N=500, N=100/country) and patients (N=1500, N=300/country). The one year follow-up concerns the students who are then qualified nurses, and nursing administrators. The main instrument for measuring PC is Nurse Competence Scale (NCS) Meretoja (2004). The data is analysed statistically.

Results: The current phase of the research project and possibly some tentative results will be presented in the conference. The research project produces information about the PC of nurses and the factors connected at the time of transition.

Conclusions: This research project connects two areas – education and working life – when examining the transition of nurses to working life. Based on the results of the study, European nursing education can be developed to meet the needs of health service, and to create means for smoothening the transition in organizations.