Around 12,000 students are enrolled in Nigeria’s nursing schools each year. As it is in many health professions, these students often find it challenging after graduation when they search for and start their first job. They feel unprepared and have difficulties to put their knowledge from school into practice.
In addition, many feel unwelcome in their teams, which results in a sense of professional isolation and high drop-out rates. Yet, new graduates stand to gain a lot if they engage in networking groups. These are known to be effective in creating a support system for young graduates, finding jobs, sharing knowledge and resources, and making connections.
WhatsApp, a mobile instant messaging platform, is a potential platform for professional networking which has seen recent remarkable expansion in Nigeria and other African countries. The reasons for this development are the increased availability of smartphones and the relatively low costs of data in Nigeria.
The platform can also be used easily without much technological knowledge and the connective features of the app enable up to 256 users to exchange text, emoticons, pictures, video, and audio messages.
These developments have created unprecedented opportunities for health professionals to share clinical information and professional experiences. It also helps them stay connected with each other after graduation.
The availability of this technology and lack of existing structures for professional networking among young nursing graduates have presented an opportunity to show how WhatsApp can be used to address this need among recent graduates of schools of nursing in Nigeria.
