The Effects of Nurse Residency Programs on New Graduate Job Satisfaction (Section B Poster 36)

During the first two years of post graduate employment, the turnover rate for newly licensed nurses is 33.5%, with high reports of job dissatisfaction (Kovner, Brewer, Fatehi, & Jun, 2014). This high turnover rate negatively affects patient care, is a large contributor to the current nurse shortage, and is costly for hospitals (Nursing Solutions, Inc., 2016). In an effort to combat this, hospitals across the country have implemented nurse residency programs (NRP). These programs utilize evidence based curriculums to enhance new nurses competencies in the areas of leadership, professional development, and patient safety. The purpose of NRP’s is to improve job satisfaction and retention rates by offering a support system and continued education that will ensure a smooth transition to the workplace. The purpose of this literature review is to determine if hospitals utilizing NRP’s have higher rates of job satisfaction than hospitals without them, and if this is positively correlated with higher retention rates. A comprehensive literature review will be conducted using CINAHL. Key search words used include nurse residency and satisfaction. The review is limited to peer reviewed articles published after 2010. Based the findings of the review, recommendations for practice will be made.

Sexual Trafficking: Developing a Teaching Strategy to Educate Emergency Department Nurses (Section B Poster 10)

Human trafficking is a rapidly growing problem in the United States. This multibillion-dollar criminal industry denies freedom to approximately 21 million people around the world. Through coercion or withholding of an individual’s legal documents, vulnerable people are forced to perform labor or sexual acts for the benefit or personal gain of others. The national crisis hot-line for trafficking cases was reached over 130,00 times since 2007. In three years, from 2012-2015, the number of calls from trafficked victims has more than doubled . Many of these victims enter the healthcare system for treatment and this provides a small, yet critical, window of time in which the healthcare field has an opportunity to help these victims. Emergency department nurses are at the frontline of healthcare delivery and are optimally positioned to reach out to this population. Currently , our Bangor hospitals do not have policies to actively screen and aid these victims. As a first step in addressing this problem, this project: 1) developed an educational presentation for healthcare workers about human trafficking and help them identify suspected victims; 2) Developed a tool guide that healthcare workers could use to help victims seek an advocate and safe haven; and 3) Evaluated emergency department registered nurse’s perception and knowledge of human trafficking through administered surveys. Using a paired t-test, statistical analysis will have determined if the knowledge gained after the presentation was significantly different from before the presentation. Study weaknesses and implications will be discussed.

Co-authors: Samantha Santos, Lucy Iselborn, Fara D'Angelo, Alyssa Curtis