12^th Nursing and Healthcare Congress

Biography

Biography: Maya Ebrahimi Zanjani

Abstract

Recruiting Overseas Qualified Nurses (OQNs) from developing countries has been practiced as a solution to the shortage of the nursing workforce in developed countries, such as Australia. The need for Qualified Nurses will increase due to increasing chronic diseases following an escalating ageing population. The transition of OQNs into developed countries’ health care system is challenging and this group of nurses face difficulties integrating into such systems. The common challenges reported in many studies are language barriers, cultural disparities and the lack of support in the work place . Among the many articles reviewing, critisising and analysing the experience of OQNs in the Australian hospital settings none examines how these group of nurses adjust into the Australian aged care settings. OQNs face different challenges in Residential aged care facilities (RACFs) due to different expectations compared to the hospital environment and the concept of Residential aged care in nursing practice. Therefore, proposed research aims to identify the adjustment challenges and issues confronted by OQNs. It will investigate the individual, social, cultural and service-related factors that enable or hinder successful integration of OQNs into the Australian Health Care System (AHCS). The study is an exploratory and descriptive mixed method investigation. A quantitative and qualitative method. Quantitative questionnaire data are analysed through SPSS and thematic analysis is applied to analyse qualitative data. Research findings and their implications for practice and future research will be discussed.This study will contribute new and unique insights to knowledge in relation to key factors influencing integration of OQNs into the AHCS and their adjustment into Australian society.