Aim: Newly employed nurses are subject to high workplace stress, which leads to a low retention rate. Resilience can reduce burnout among nurses. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships among perceived stress, resilience, sleep quality of new nurses during initial employment, and their impacts on first‐month retention.Design: This is a cross‐sectional study design.Methods: We used a convenience sampling method to recruit 171 new nurses between January and September 2021. The Perceived Stress Scale, Resilience Scale, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory (PSQI) were conducted in the study. Logistic regression analysis was used to explore the impacts on first‐month retention for newly employed nurses.Results: The initial perceived stress, resilience, and sleep quality of the newly employed nurses were not correlated with the first‐month retention rate. Forty‐four per cent of the newly recruited nurses had sleep disorders. Resilience, sleep quality, and perceived stress of newly employed nurses were significantly correlated. Newly employed nurses assigned to their desired wards had lower perceived stress than their peers.

Background: Clinical practicums provide essential learning experiences for nursing students and are critical in preparing these students to enter the workforce. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted nursing education worldwide, leading to reduced clinical practicum opportunities for graduates. Research on how shorter/abbreviated clinical practicums affect the competence of newly graduated nurses is lacking. Purpose: The purpose of this research was to explore the impacts of reduced clinical practicum duration and content on the clinical competence, communication confidence, and retention rate of newly hired nurses over a 6-month follow-up period. Methods: A follow-up design incorporating a retrospective baseline assessment of clinical practicums was used to track outcomes at three time points during June 12, 2023 and June 11, 2024. The sample included 133 newly hired nurses at a medical center in northern Taiwan. Data on clinical practicum experience and clinical nursing competence, communication confidence, and retention rate outcomes at the commencement of employment and after 3 and 6 months were collected. Results: The results showed the average percentage of overall clinical practicum completed was 80.78% and that actual durations ranged from 37.5% to 100% of the normal (nonpandemic) duration. Clinical practicum experience was found to significantly influence nursing competence at the start of employment ( p =.004) and at 3 ( p =.002) and 6 months ( p =.023) of employment. In addition, clinical practicum experience was also shown to affect communication confidence at the start of employment ( p =.035). No correlation was observed between clinical practicum experience and retention rates at 3 and 6 months of employment. Finally, newly graduated nurses without licenses exhibited significantly less nursing competence than their licensed counterparts ( p =.001). Conclusions/Implications for Practice: Nursing education programs should assess the clinical practicum experience of newly hired nurses and provide support for those with less experience to enhance their nursing competence and communication confidence. Future research should address the challenges associated with unlicensed nursing graduates.