ORIGINAL ARTICLE e-ISSN: 2349-0659 p-ISSN; 2350-0964 Readiness for Practice among Pregraduate Nursing Students in South India: A Cross-sectional Survey Dinesh Kumar Suganandam*, Vinitha Ravindran, Vathsala Sadan, Ida Sweetlin Priyadarsini A BSTRACT Background: Often the transition from student nurse to a graduate nurse causes stress and fatigue among novice nurses. This study intended to identify the readiness for practice among pregraduate nurses. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey conducted among 195 pregraduate nursing students. Participants flled Modifed Casey-Fink Readiness for practice tool. A total of 192 students responded to the survey. Student t-test and ANOVA were used to identify the diference in practice based on demographic variables. Results: Overall mean score of readiness for practice among pregraduate nurses was found to be 58.5 ± 5.58. There was signifcant diference in readiness for practice in terms of their religion and program of study. Conclusion: To facilitate the smooth transition from student to professional, a planned preparatory program may be useful at the course completion. Keywords: Nursing students, Pregraduate nurses, Readiness for practice, Transition Asian Pac. J. Health Sci., (2022); DOI: 10.21276/apjhs.2022.9.4S1.05 ©2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. I NTRODUCTION Over the last two decades, there has been an enormous increase in the number of nursing institutes/schools in diferent parts of India. The increase in quantity did not go in par with the quality of nursing education provided due to lack implementation of expected statutory guidelines in terms of clinical requirements and curriculum implementation. Further, the training falls short of enabling students to meet the current health demands of the country at large. Although this is a general scenario in the country, some institutions have been stringent in following the guidelines and have stood frm on providing quality nursing education to empower nursing students to meet patient care needs comprehensively. With the increase in number of log book requirements which are expected to be completed in each year of nursing, even the nurse educators in institutions with good clinical and teaching facilities strain to balance their clinical teaching between completing the logbook requirements for all students efectively as well as enabling students to learn to provide comprehensive patient care which facilitates nursing students to take up professional roles in clinical settings. On the other hand, nursing students are focused on completing their clinical requirements and may be achieving their clinical objectives in silos, out of comprehensive patient care context. Therefore, there is a feeling of inadequacy and incompetence when they need to take up professional nurse roles. The stress in transitioning then becomes multifold for students at the end of their studentship period. The hands-on skill in most of the institutes was less and also the norms for attaching with the hospital is irregular. Although the quantity is more, the quality is still questionable. [1] The way the nurses are educated today does not match the complexities of health-care realities. Academia and clinical services should work together to improve the educational preparation for better nurses. [2] National Council of State Boards of Nursing has designed a transition to practice model which will enable the freshmen nurses to have a smooth transition to workforce. [3] The transition from nursing student to nursing staf is quite stressful. Novice nurses College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India. Corresponding Author: Mr. Dinesh Kumar Suganandam, College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India. E-mail: dinesh.kumars@cmcvellore.ac.in How to cite this article: Suganandam DK, Ravindran V, Sadan V, Priyadarsini IS. Readiness for Practice among Pregraduate Nursing Students in South India: A Cross-sectional Survey. Asian Pac. J. Health Sci., 2022;9(4S1):29-36. Source of support: Nil Conficts of interest: None. Received: 03/05/2022 Revised: 17/06/2022 Accepted: 04/07/2022 experience severe stress and anxiety during the frst 6 months of period. The stress was focused toward four important things as identifed by Charnley, namely, the reality of practice, learning the system, developing the clinical judgments, and professional relationships. [4] A study based in Ireland conducted by O’Shea and Kelly also mentioned that the stress of the novice nurses is primarily due to the multidimensional roles and responsibilities including clinical, managerial, and organizational skills. Exposed to a situation which is challenging to manage is also a major stressful factor. [5] Smith and Crawford identify that the new graduate nurses undergo much stress during their initial period of work life which leads to adverse medical errors and dropouts. [6] They felt and they have less confdence in taking care of patients due to lack of knowledge in pharmacology, anatomy, physiology, leadership, and clinical judgments. They felt quite stressful and perceived a lack of support from mentors. [7] Azimian et al. discuss that inadequate preparedness and readiness are a major contributing factor for nurses coping during transition. [8] The lack of practice readiness is highly attributed to the real gap of theory and practice and the complex nature of current working environment. [9] Readiness refers to quality or state of being ready as mentioned in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. An Australian study