Impact of Innovative Training Constructs to Public Health Nursing and Retention

Strategies implemented by Public Health employers will need to be assessed to confront the community nursing shortage. Current nursing curricula still focuses on hospital acute and long-term care and not on community service. A holistic exposure to Public Health nursing education that includes specific conditions affecting the community, population health outcomes, and advocacy for preventive measures in undergraduate training will result in greater numbers entering the field. Gradual phasing-in to nursing culture will increase retention in the first year of employment. The present curricula have high student attrition, high graduate one year employment turnover in the clinical setting, and low numbers choosing community nursing. These unfinished quitting-students and graduates are part of a healthcare workforce crisis that creates a challenge from the high vacancy found in the profession. In a study carried out in an undergraduate program, exposure is addressed by changing the training to an incremental experience in adapting from an academic to a clinical and community service ambient. Introductory community health information and coping-mechanisms to stressors taught in the baccalaureate program are intended to assist the student in acclimating to real work professional experiences. The outcome is a cultural-clinical-community work environment that strives to prevent dissatisfaction, fatigue, stress, medical-accidents, and abandonment of the profession without compromising quality assurance. The study demonstrates a measurable association comparable to post-graduate nurse residency programs retention results. Replicating constructs of this program will result in increased numbers choosing this field and augmenting retention rates in Public Health Nursing.