TRANSITIONING TO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE: THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF NOVICE NURSES IN THEIR FIRST YEAR OF PRACTICE

As nursing graduates move from the education environment to the service environment, roles become more challenging and stressful. Being mindful of the challenges, this phenomenological study has captured the collective experiences of 15 Filipino novice nurses as they transition to professional practice. They were driven by the central question, "what describes the lived experience of the novice nurses in their first year of practice?" which the researchers conducted an in-depth semi-structured interview. Field texts were transcribed and subjected to phenomenological reduction via thematic analysis. Through constant reading, re-reading, and comparison methods, four themes emerged describing novice nurses' transition experiences: reality shock, peer pressure, lack of confidence, and learning to sail and move on. Findings reveal as the transition became harder for everyone and challenges were always present, novice nurses still cope by believing in themselves and learning new things they need for the profession. Identifying the challenges also identified the solution that they would be for them to cope and perform their job well. Learning to sail describes the novice nurses' way of moving on and coping with the challenges they have experienced. On the whole, analysis and understanding of these experiences offer a responsible perspective through which nursing administrators in terms of relationship management could be viewed, thus, outshining one's experience to a meaningful one.