Factors affecting occupational turnover among nurses in Hong Kong

Abstract

Aims: Shortage of nurses remains a challenging issue that encounters by healthcare system worldwide. The occupational turnover rate is continuously rising locally, causing an insufficient nurse-to-patient ratio, which further deteriorates the morale of the remaining nurses. If the turnover rate has not settled successfully, the quality of hospital service and patient care might be threatened eventually. The issue may cause adverse healthcare and professional service impacts as a whole. This qualitative study aimed to explore the factors affecting occupational turnover among hospital nurses in Hong Kong.

Methods: Altogether eighteen nurses who resigned from general hospitals and altered their occupations were recruited. By using purposive sampling method, individual, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews of these resigned nurses conducted in 2017. The audio-recorded data were transcribed and secondarily analyzed according to the Straussian grounded theory approach.

Results: Total of four male and 14 female, registered nurses, participated in the study. They aged over 26, and six of them were single in 2017. Three main categories with six subcategories of contributing factors affecting nurses’ occupational turnover illustrated. The three main categories include inadequate communication due to ineffective leadership; inadequate motivation due to limited career opportunities; inadequate satisfaction due to a tense work environment.

Conclusion: This study offered an in-depth understanding of contributing factors regarding hospital nurses’ occupational change locally. The findings could inform the hospital administration or management in formulating appropriate strategies or policy to enhance communication, motivation, and satisfaction; and finally, retention of the workforce might be improved. Further research to investigate the hospital management views and perspectives regarding factors affecting nurses resignation is recommended.