Adaptation to Clinical Experience by Older Graduate Nurses who Entered Nursing after Graduation in Another Field

Kim, Mi Young; Won, Jong Soon

Abstract

PURPOSE: With the increasing opportunities for students to transfer into nursing from other departments or after graduation, it is important to examine how these students adapt to clinical work in the hospital setting after graduation. This study was done to describe the adaptation experience of older graduate nurses in hospital settings and to understand the meanings and search the nature of their experience. METHOD: For this study, the participants were 6 nurses who entered nursing after having graduated from college or university in another field. The data were collected through in-depth interviews from March to April 2007 and analyzed by Colaizzi's phenomenological method.
RESULTS
The essential themes of the adaptation experience for older graduate nurses were the following 6 categories: taking responsibilities for the expected role according to one's age, following the rules of senior-junior hierarchy, being ambivalent about one's older age, expanding one's support system, getting rid of the concept of age difference and establishing the expected position appropriate for one's career.
CONCLUSION
For older graduate nurses, interpersonal relationship factors were more important than work related factors. Therefore, it is important to create a more flexible nursing culture to ease the adaptation of these older graduate nurses.