Enhancing Nursing Graduate readiness for practice Through leadership competence: a correlational study

The sensitivity and complexity of healthcare sector mandate having competent leaders within nursing graduates. They are expected to hit the ground and be ready to lead their way when joining their first workplace. Although, some literatures have illuded to the correlation between leadership competency level and graduated nursing students’ readiness for practice, none of them studied the direct correlation among them. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of leadership competencies availability among nursing graduates of Jordanian nursing colleges and the degree of their readiness for practice, and the correlation among both variables. This study used a quantitative correlational method. 40 items questionnaire was developed for this study to assess leadership competency. while 22 items Casey- Fink survey was used to explore new graduates’ readiness for practice. The study sample was chosen based on convenience sampling technique and consisted of 268 Clinical Nurse Leaders (CNLs) who participate in supervising and preparing new graduating nurses in their first employment. The minimal required sample size was 260 participants, and the total number of obtained participants were 268. SPSS system was used to analyse the quantitative data in this study, frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation were calculated for all study survey items. Pearson correlation coefficients was calculated to measure the relationship between the degree of leadership competencies availability among graduates of Jordanian nursing colleges and their readiness to practice, whereas Spearman's rho test used to measure the strength of association between leadership dimensions and new graduate’s readiness for practice. The overall results showed a moderate availability of leadership competencies, and a moderate degree of readiness to practice among nursing graduates from CNLs perspectives. Pearson coefficient correlation value showed a strong positive relationship among new graduates’ leadership competencies availability and their readiness for practice. To conclude, It is highly recommended to incorporate and focus on nursing leadership within teaching curriculum over different academic years in an incremental manner starting from fundamental kills, then to moderate and advance levels. More connections for students with the nursing professional body outside the university may start at early academic stages, connecting them with national nursing councils, Committees, and health organizations to improve their leadership competence and make them ready for workplace when graduating is highly recommended.