Embracing Ambiguity, Uncertainty, and Dissonance: A Conceptual Framework to Guide the Transition to Practice

Feelings of ambiguity, uncertainty, and dissonance can be transformed into opportunities for growth to develop students' readiness, capacity, and perseverance as they transition to practice. The professional readiness of nurses is frequently tied to ameliorating issues of ambiguity by defining and preparing nurses according to professional-readiness outcomes, uncertainty through theory-to-practice instruction, and dissonance with self-care and resilience coping skills. There is little research on nursing students' capacity to embrace feelings of ambiguity, uncertainty, and dissonance despite the tendency to try to resolve these feelings as they care for patients.