An exploration of participants' experience of an intensive care nursing transition to specialty practice program

Background: Transition to specialty practice programs were developed to support, educate and facilitate recruitment and retention of nurses in specialised areas of practice. The intensive care nursing transition to specialty practice program in this study was implemented in 2000. To date, in Australia there are no published studies which focus on intensive care nursing transition to specialty practice programs. Objectives: The study aimed to explore the effects of an intensive care nursing transition to specialty practice program offered in two intensive care units in a single Australian health service. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was used. Quantitative data were collected from nurses who participated in the transition to specialty practice program from 2005 to 2015 using an anonymous online survey. Summary statistics and Chi-square tests were used to analyse the data. Results: The response rate was 51.8% (n = 86). Most of the transition to specialty practice program participants had medical nursing experience (n = 35, 40.7%) or surgical nursing experience (n = 35, 40.7%) prior to enrolling into the program. More than half (n = 46, 53.5%) of the participants had worked in the intensive care units for more than two years post program. The majority of the participants (n = 60, 69.8%) undertook post graduate education after the transition to specialty practice program. Conclusion: Significant numbers of experienced nurses undertook transition to specialty practice program into intensive care and majority of the participants reported positive results of the program.