Abstract
Background: Graduate-entry nursing students rapidly transition to the healthcare workforce. Nursing values, knowledge, and skills contribute to the development of these learners' professional nursing self as they shift into their new careers.
Objectives: This research aimed to understand how graduate entry nursing students a) develop a sense of self as a nurse and b) articulate that sense of self in thinking, speaking and acting as a nurse.
Design: Longitudinal case study.
Setting: This study was conducted at four tertiary education institutions in Australia and New Zealand.
Participants: Twenty-one students within two cohorts of graduate entry nursing preregistration Master's degree programmes.
Methods: The longitudinal case study included 21 graduate entry nursing student participants across two cohorts, two countries, and four tertiary educational programmes. Participants were interviewed up to four times over three years, 57 interviews in total, between 2020 and 2023. In the data analysis, researchers used Interpretive Description to identify themes.
Results: The analysis revealed three themes, each with two subthemes. Themes included Situating the self in nursing, which encompasses understanding one's purpose in nursing and finding one's self in nursing; Influences on professional identity, which involves influential nurses and a growing sense of connection and belonging; and Participants' Emerging professional identity as a sense of nursing self and caring for self to care for others.
Conclusion: Graduate entry nursing students' sense of self as nurses evolved through aligning professional and personal values and identifying a connection with what brings meaning and a sense of purpose to their working lives. Graduateness was identified as an important influence, built upon what these graduate-entry nursing students bring to their practice and the profession. The strong psychological influence of nurses on both students and early career nurses highlights the importance of fostering a psychologically safe professional environment from educational programmes and beyond.