INTRODUCTION Perioperative nursing faces a significant issue of high turnovers. A significant number of skilled perioperative nurses will leave the workforce as they near retirement age, resulting in a challenging demand to meet the staffing shortage (Ball et al., 2015). Recent statistics from AHPRA and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia reported that approximately 38-40% of nurses are aged 50 years or older. In 2024-2025, roughly 21.2% of nurses are above the age of 55, while around 38.4% are between the ages of 45 and 75(AHPRA, 2025). In addition, inadequate workplace preparedness has been closely linked to poor employee retention, increased burnout, and attrition has severe budgetary impacts (Finlayson et al., 2025). Addressing the support needs in terms of training for new nurses transitioning into the perioperative system is important. It addresses not only the provision of quality care but also ensuring work force sustainability. Existing preceptorship and support programs for perioperative nurses remain inconsistent in form, duration, and content (Nijkamp et al., 2026). Moreover, current preceptorship programs are mainly tailored for general nursing rather than specialised fields, such as the Operating Room (OR) (Willemsen-McBride, 2010). A preliminary search was undertaken to identify related reviews in the support programs for perioperative nurses; only one scoping review was found. The review provided a descriptive overview of the transition program and its characteristics but did not focus on the preceptorship models. Furthermore, the study only included two primary research, the remaining are all discussion papers (Nijkamp et al., 2024). So, empirical evidence is lacking to evaluate the perioperative transition and support program. Therefore, this integrative review aims to identify and synthesis the existing literature on preceptorship and support programs available to new nurses transitioning into perioperative settings.
Mathew et al. (Thu,) studied this question.