Outcome measures for traditional and accelerated nursing graduates: an integrative literature review.

AIM: The purpose of this article is to examine research studies that compared outcome measures of students/graduates of traditional and accelerated BSN programs.

BACKGROUND: Accelerated postgraduate baccalaureate nursing programs are popular. It is important to compare outcome measures and explore equivalence between traditional and accelerated programs.

METHOD: Peer-reviewed research articles published within the last six years were identified in ERIC, CINAHL, and MEDLINE.

RESULTS: Seven research studies involving 1,159 traditional students and 576 accelerated students were included in this review.

CONCLUSION: Findings indicate that although there were some statistically significant differences in outcomes between groups, research methodologies used in several of the studies were not ideal. Future research needs to be geared toward practice pattern differences between the two groups as well as research exploring evaluation methods.