The newly graduated nurse’s experie

The newly graduated nurse’s experience of transitionwhen entering professional practice, although not completelyseparate from the constructs of socialization andprofessionalization, is differentiated here as the processof making a significant adjustment to changing personaland professional roles at the start of one’s nursing career.Understood in the context of this research, transition fornewly graduated nurses consists of a nonlinear experiencethat moves them through personal and professional,intellectual and emotive, and skill and role relationshipchanges and contains within it experiences, meanings,and expectations. Although it is reasonable to presumean individualized transition experience for the newlygraduated nurse, the first 12 months of work experienceencompasses a complex but relatively predictable arrayof emotional, intellectual, physical, sociocultural, anddevelopmental issues that in turn feed a progressive andsequential pattern of personal and professional evolution.