Speakers - 2026

Title: The importance of resilience in new nursing graduates

Abstract

Managing one’s time throughout nursing school and during the transition into a full-time nursing role can be difficult for new graduate nurses. The transition involves significant changes in title, responsibilities, and work environment. Building professional confidence and resilience is crucial for their success during this transition. Strategies such as continuing learning, seeking mentorship, building support networks, embracing challenges, engaging in self-reflection, and adjusting practice may help students make this transition. The turnover rate for new nurses in the U.S, ranges from 59% in year one to 79.5% in year two (Nursing Solutions Inc., 2024). New graduate nurses who struggle to transition into their professional roles are more likely to resign from their position or leave the nursing profession altogether (Hallaran et al., 2021; Spector et al., 2015). Personal experience demonstrates that a high percentage of nurses leave bedside nursing in year one due to the high-stress environment and lack of support for new nursing graduates. Nursing students report experiencing symptoms of burnout, such as exhaustion and disengagement, on entering the nursing workforce. Therefore, the Future of Nursing Report 2020-2030 posits resilience as a necessary trait to counter negative workforce demands and calls for strategies to promote nursing students’ psychological well-being and resilience (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2021). Resilience, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. Supported by personal characteristics, beliefs, organizational, and environmental factors, during nursing education (Aryuwat et al., 2022) can promote new graduate nurses' success and retention (Lee & De Gagne, 2022; Randall et al., 2023). Research into new graduate nurses' resilience is critical as unsuccessful transitions can lead to resignations, increased costs, unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios, and workforce shortages (Bae, 2022, 2023) during this critical nursing transition.