NCLEX and Entry-Level Nurse Characteristics

The National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX®) is developed to measure the minimum knowledge, skills, and abilities required to deliver safe, effective nursing care at the entry level. Part of the development process is to periodically review and define the practice environment for entry-level nurses and the environment's effect on the length of the entry-level period. For the purposes of the NCLEX examinee profile, this period has been 6 months. However, analysis of data from a 9-year span indicated that the environment had become more complex; thus, the question arose about the current length of the entry-level period.This article presents the results of a National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) review indicating that the period should be longer than 6 months. Based on the results, NCSBN now defines the entry-level period as 12 months.