Graduate entry to practice in nursing: exploring demographic characteristics of commencing students

Objective Graduate entry to nursing programs are new to Australia. This paper reports on an analysis of students enrolled in an accelerated, pre-registration, masters-level nursing course in Melbourne, Australia. Design Quantitative surveys were used to gather data on a range of demographic characteristics and factors relating to students' choice to undertake nursing. Setting The study was conducted at one campus of an Australian university. Subjects Seventy-nine students from the first two cohorts of the Master of Nursing Practice participated in the study. Main outcome measure(s) Descriptive statistics were used to examine age and gender distributions, previous education and employment history, along with reasons surrounding students' application for entry to the course. Results Findings revealed higher male participation than traditional undergraduate nursing programs and students originated from a wide range of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds. Students' previous education ranged from bachelor degree to doctoral levels. A wide range of reasons were given for moving to a nursing career. Predominant reasons were career stability, being part of a caring profession and previous personal or family experience with the health care setting. Conclusion Accelerated programs such as this have the potential to add to the nursing workforce in a way other programs do not, build diverse expertise and professional knowledge. Understanding the characteristics of people attracted to these courses will assist with appropriate tailoring of programs, as well as assisting with marketing the nursing profession.