The effectiveness of nurse residency programs on new graduate nurses' retention: Systematic review

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization estimated a need for around 6 million nurses by 2030 to meet the healthcare demand. The International Council of Nurses reported that, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, the aging nursing workforce, and the high turnover of nurses were some of the factors that contributed to the anticipated 13 million nursing deficit. Globally, there is a worry about the high turnover with no doubt. The cost of turnover and recruitment incurred by healthcare organizations are huge which requires developing measures and interventions to address the problem. Nurse Residency Programs is a promising educational intervention for improving nurses' retention rates and reducing the impact of the shortage.

Pico question: What effect does successful completion of Nurse Residency Program have on new nurses' retention rates compared with new nurses who missed the Nurse Residency Program?

Inclusion criteria: The review included articles; published in English, between 2016 and 2023 that addressed nurse retention rates, associated with Nurse Residency Program participation.

Methods: The systematic review followed the PRISMA protocol. An extensive search on the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), MEDLINE, Academic Search Complete, and PubMed for studies published between January 2016 and March 2023 in English language. The key words, 'graduate nurses', 'new graduate nurses', 'residency', 'internships and residency', 'NRP', 'retention and retention rates'. Utilizing the JBI Sumari, two reviewers screened the citations, reviewed the eligibility criteria, conducted the critical appraisal, and assessed the risk of bias and extracted data from the included studies. Cochrane Risk of Bias in Non - randomized studies of intervention (ROBINS-I) tool was used to assess risk for bias.

Results: Out of 189 studies, 48 studies removed as duplicate, remaining with 141 article. After screening titles and abstracts, only 48 papers retrieved for full-text evaluation. Out of 48 research only 5 publications were included in the review. The researchers identified the methodological heterogeneity is a major factor to stop the metanalysis and keep the systematic review.

Conclusions: Nurse Residency Programs showed promise as an educational intervention to cultivate well-supported, competent, and confident new nurses. These programs have the potential to improve retention rates during the initial 12 months of employment. To gain a deeper understanding of retention beyond the first year, additional randomized control trials are essential. Furthermore, there is a need to integrate standardized Nurse Residency Programs into organizational policies and clinical practice settings in the UAE.

Keywords: Graduate nurses; Internships; Nurse; Nurse residency program; Residency; Retention; Turnover and retention rate.

Fig. 1

Prisma diagram.