Nurses' career choice and satisfaction with mental health transition-to-practice programs: A cross sectional study

What Is Known on the Subject? There are significant issues recruiting nurses into mental health due to several reasons such as dilution of curriculum, and mental health being an unpopular career choice Transition programs provide nurses entering mental health with orientation, academic and clinical skills, and knowledge.What the Paper Adds to Existing Knowledge? Transition programs need to be nuanced to specialty areas (e.g. community) to ensure nurses are given the support necessary to remain working in the field. Many nurses choose to work in mental health due to a lived or personal experience and as such strengthening wellbeing supports for transitioning nurses is an important role in retention.What Are the Implications for Practice? Tailored transition programs can help strengthen mental health nurse role clarity, and support staff retention. Transition programs should be a segue to formal postgraduate studies in mental health nursing to strengthen professional practice and retention of nurses.IntroductionGlobally, there are consistent issues recruiting staff into the mental health nursing workforce. In Australia, recent efforts to expand the workforce include recruitment of a wider range of nurses in addition to new graduates into mental health transition-to-practice programs. Understanding the career motivations of nurses entering the field is an important element of recruitment and retention.AimTo describe nurses' satisfaction with their mental health transition program and identify factors influencing their choice of mental health as a career.MethodsAn online cross-sectional survey with questions on program satisfaction and career choice was responded to by n = 55 enrolled and registered nurses in a mental health transition program.ResultsNurses reported overall high satisfaction with their program and identified increased time release for professional development and being supernumerary as necessary to support role development. Almost 25% of nurses reported personal experience of mental illness as an influence in choosing a mental health career.DiscussionMental health transition programs are important in recruitment and retention and need to be tailored to the needs of a wide range of nurses and include support for staff wellbeing.Implications for PracticeTailored transition programs can help strengthen role clarity, and support staff retention.