The experiences, challenges and rewards of nurses from South Asia in the process of entering the Australian nursing system

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to explore the experiences, challenges and rewards of a group of nurses qualified in other countries in their journey through interview, selection, arrival, registration and integration within the Australian nursing system.

Design: The study uses narrative analysis to tell the stories of the recruited nursing staff who took up the opportunity to travel to Australia. It relies heavily on the expressed and subjective experiences of the recruited nurses and the data are captured in narrative text. Thematic analysis was used to group the experiences into clusters that reveal a variety of positive and negative
experiences.

Setting: All of the nurses at the time of the study were working in an Australian public mental health facility.

Subjects: Most participants were married and at the time of interview, their families were either with them in Australia or in the process of immigrating to Australia. They ranged in age from twenty six to forty one. Of the participants, fourteen were female and two were male. Their combined nursing experiences included medical, surgical, emergency, neonatal intensive care,
orthopaedics, obstetrics, midwifery and psychiatry.

Main outcome measures: The main outcome measure of this study was to explore, identify and document, in the words and
expressions of participants, the lived experience of immigration, living and working as a nurse in a foreign country. The study offers insights into the individual’s experience.

Conclusions: Each story was as unique as the individual telling it however, several broad themes emerged from the narratives as insights to the experience. These themes were, Trust and fear; English language requirements; Immigration issues; Belonging, integration and family and Living and working in the West From these insights, recommendations for future
recruitment activity of this kind have been deduced and included at the end of this report.