Professional nursing practice in hospitals: Those who stay, and those who leave

Abstract

The purpose of this two-group, cross-sectional descriptive study was to compare self-reported professional practice indices and work satisfaction of hospital staff nurses who remained continuously employed within the institution ("stayers"; n = 127) and staff nurses who voluntarily terminated employment ("leavers"; n = 44). The data used for this secondary analysis were collected for the Differentiated Group Professional Practice in Nursing project (#U01-NR02153). Stayers reported significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher organizational commitment, control over nursing practice, satisfaction with nurse-to-nurse interactions, satisfaction with professional status, and autonomy. Significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) in age, intent to remain within the community, employment status, and length of organizational tenure were also found. Discriminant analysis using indices of professional practice and work satisfaction was utilized to differentiate between stayers and leavers. Stayers were predicted with 92% accuracy and leavers with 33% accuracy. Investigation of misclassified leavers (n = 29) revealed no identifiable common personal or employment characteristics.