Introduction:

The master's degree program in nursing offered by the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa through the Culiacan School of Nursing contemplates that graduates should develop competencies and provide answers to problems related to nursing care.

Objective:

To describe experiences of graduates of the master's degree in nursing from the Culiacan School of Nursing.

Methodology:

Qualitative, descriptive, phenomenological, and interpretative study using the technique of in-depth interviews, supported by a semi-structured guide and with informed consent, applied to six graduates of the master's degree in nursing. The data were processed through thematic content analysis by De Souza Minayo in 3 stages: ordering and open coding, data classification, and horizontal and cross-sectional analysis, with which a category and two subcategories were obtained. The final analysis was carried out through an inflection from empirical to theoretical and vice versa.

Results:

In the experiences lived by the graduates, emotions experienced during the development of research competencies were identified; these emotions affected their cognitive process by living with stress, despair, fear, or depression, and these emotions led them to be competent in research, database search, use of software, and publishing skills.

Conclusions:

After their experiences in the master's degree program in nursing, the graduates showed that they had lived emotions that affected their mental health, facing physiological and emotional problems derived from the stress experienced. As for their research skills, they reported being able to search databases, perform critical analysis, and even publish a scientific article.