Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the behaviors of senior nurses that new graduate nurses perceived as supportive, unsupportive and to discuss characteristics of how new graduate nurses perceived the behaviors of senior nurses. The instrument was open-ended questionnaire asking what the behaviors of senior nurses that new graduate nurses perceived as supportive and unsupportive. It was mailed to 679 hospital based new graduate nurses in Japan. Out of 270 received, 238 responses describing the supportive behaviors, 106 responses describing the unsupportive behaviors. These data were analyzed by the qualitative analysis in nursing education based on Berelson's content analysis method. As a result, 32 categories of behaviors of senior nurses that new graduate nurses perceived as supportive, such as "Helping a new graduate nurses with work they cannot do by providing guidance or assistance" and 24 categories of behaviors that they perceived as unsupportive, such as "Pointing out faults or mistakes " were clarified. The agreement rates calculated by the formula of W.A. Scott were over 70%, therefore the reliability of these categories was confirmed. The results suggest that 10 characteristics of how new graduate nurses perceived supportive and unsupportive behaviors of senior nurses.
