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Purpose: The purpose of this innovative tool is to help new nurse graduates identify their own personal confidence level and assurance with clinical skills and processes in the clinical environment.
Background: Per Bandura’s self-efficacy theoretical framework, self-confidence is an essential characteristic of self-efficacy, one’s own beliefs in successfully managing an objective or situation. An individual assessment can reveal strengths with tasks a person may feel he or she can confidently manage and provide awareness and identification of skills that may need improvement or reinforcement. Nurse graduate self-reporting can aid educators by providing insight and identification of skill or practice concerns.
Problem statement: A literature review revealed a lack of validated tools designed to measure perceived strengths and weaknesses for nurses who progress from training programs to the workplace, within a structured transition program. Therefore, the project sought to develop a tool that obtained individual nurse input to guide program adjustments that meet the needs of new graduate nurses.
Description: The nurse confidence scale was developed by clinical nurse educators working at a community-based hospital to measure confidence levels. The five-point Likert tool measures 25 basic nursing skills and processes. The nurse graduate rates his or her own comfort level, confidence, and ability to accomplish skills or tasks from one (low) to five (high). The tool was completed by nurse graduates during the first week and again at six months of the transition program. Subjective data was also obtained from the nurse graduates to help educators understand individual perspectives, challenges, and goals on the same schedule. All data were used to individualize educational plans designed to meet the needs of the new nurse graduate.
Evaluation/outcome: Confidence scale data comparing measures taken during the first week to six months were analyzed using a paired t-test. Questions were categorized into skills, communication, and critical thinking. An aggregate score was determined in each category. Total sample size was n=83 across three new nurse graduate cohorts from fall 2019 to fall 2020. Results show highly significant improvement in self-perceived confidence levels (p