Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIM: The internship is a program for transition of nursing students to the clinical setting. This study was conducted to describe and interpret the experiences of nursing students from the internship program. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was an interpretative phenomenological study following Van Menen's approach in six steps. Twelve nursing students were selected from 12 different universities in Iran from April to August 2020. Data was collected through 15 in-depth interviews (three supplementary interviews) over the course of 25-90 min and verbatim transcriptions. Data were analyzed with MAXQDA version 10 software. The researcher used four Guba and Lincoln criteria to obtain a rigorous study. RESULTS: In this study, three main themes and eight subthemes were extracted. The main themes included "professional identity development," "moving toward professional self-efficacy," and "developing coping strategies for workplace adversities." The subthemes were "promoting the cognition of profession," "acceptance among colleagues as a nurse," "accepting professional roles," "self-awareness of weaknesses in patient care," "self-reliance," "advancing clinical skills," "adopting effective coping strategies," and "avoiding tension in clinical settings." CONCLUSION: Nursing internship students have experienced moving toward professionalization with professional identity and self-efficacy development, and they succeeded in clinical challenges by learning coping approaches.