Professional support in rural New South Wales: Perceptions of new graduate occupational therapists

Objective: To explore the experiences of professional support among new graduates working in rural New South Wales, including the current availability of professional support and the impact of support levels on professional practice. Design: Qualitative, using semistructured face‐to‐face or telephone interviews. Setting: New graduate occupational therapists employed in public and private hospitals and community health services in rural New South Wales. Subjects: Nine new graduate occupational therapists within their first year of practice. Main outcome: A description of participant experiences of professional support and strategies to enhance the recruitment and retention of occupational therapists in rural areas. Results: Participants reported varied experiences of professional support and emphasised the importance of having access to a wide variety of resources. Participants highlighted that professional support could assist in developing independence and other skills. However, ultimately a lack of support resulted in decreased confidence and subsequent decreased job satisfaction among participants. Conclusions: The findings suggest that greater effort should be directed to ensuring that all new graduates have access to professional support, including structured supervision, and that strategies be explored and adopted to ensure that this occurs. What is already known on this subject: New graduate occupational therapists need assistance to effectively ease their transition into the responsibilities of practice. In rural areas, new graduates are likely to be in sole therapy positions, or in smaller, more isolated teams. A previous study has identified the experiences of rural new graduates – this included the need for professional support. What does this study add: The present study looks in detail at the professional support needs of new graduates in rural areas, from their perspective, and identifies strategies that may address these needs.