Impact of a two-year transition programme on patient and nurse perceived missed nursing care — A comparative cross-sectional study

The nursing shortage is influenced by an often-reported transition shock among newly graduated nurses, and transition programmes may support both retention and improve the quality of nursing care. To measure patients’ and nursing staffs’ perceptions of missed nursing care in study wards following a two-year transition programme for newly graduated nurses compared to wards following a standard transition program A comparative cross-sectional survey design was used. Three medical inpatient wards with a two-year transition program and three comparable medical inpatient wards with a standard transition programme. Data collection started March 3rd 2025. Based on a power calculation, 206 hospitalised patients, comprising 103 from the study wards and 103 from the standard wards, were included. 239 nursing staffs was invited to participate; of these, 159 responded to the survey. The validated MISSCARE Survey–Patient and MISSCARE Survey were used to collect data from patients and nursing staff. The responses were dichotomised and compared using the Chi-squared test. The sum scores were compared using the Wilcoxon Rank Sum test or the Student’s t -test. The study was not registered. Patients in wards with a two-year transition programme reported less missed psychosocial care (p=0.03), particularly for involvement in decisions (p=0.02), receiving needed information (p=0.03), and being treated with dignity (p=0.05), but they reported with more missed care related to help with walking (p=0.03). Nursing staff in study wards reported less missed nursing care for patient teaching (p=0.01), complete documentation (p=0.04), and timely medication administration (p= 0.05), but more missed care in responding to call lights within 5 minutes (p=0.01). They also rated urgent patient situations (p=0.02,) lack of team backup (p=0.03) and insufficient assistive personnel (p<0.001) as less important reasons for missed care than staff in standard wards. The results indicate that a longer and more comprehensive transition programme may contribute to improved psychosocial care and a supportive clinical environment, potentially at the expense of assistance with ambulation or call-light response times. Further research on patient outcomes is needed.