Newly Graduated Nurses' Career Adaptability and Its Relation to Professional Competence and Professional Development in Intensive Care: A comparative Study

Background: Newly graduated nurses (NGNs) hold a crucial role in intensive care units in delivering safe nursing care. They experience numerous challenges with role transition. As a result, the NGNs must be clinically competent and constantly develop professionally to adapt to these turbulent careers. Aim: Assess newly graduated nurses' career adaptability and its relation to professional competence and professional development in intensive care units in two different settings. Design: Comparative correlational research design was employed. Setting: Tanta University Main Hospital and Kafrelsheikh General Hospital including ICUs. Subjects: All available (n=175) newly graduated intensive care nurses at two hospitals. Tools: Three tools were utilized: Career Adapt-Ability Scale-5, Nurse Professional Competence-Short Version Scale, and Nurse Professional Development Questionnaire. Results: At Tanta and Kafrelsheikh Hospitals, around two-fifths (40% and 38.7%) of nurses had a moderate level of career adaptability. More than half (52.0% and 53.3%) of nurses demonstrated a satisfactory competence level, while 50.0% and 54.7% of them showed low professional development levels at both hospitals, respectively. Conclusion: There were statistically significant positive correlations between new graduated nurses' career adaptability and professional competence and professional development at both hospitals, with no statistically significant difference between the two hospitals. Recommendations: Nurse managers need to be aware of the primary elements influencing new graduates' career adaptability and facilitate the opportunities for them to grow and develop much professional competence and career adaptability.