Nursing professionals don't stay in the workplace

Full Answer Section

The persistent and concerning rate of nurse turnover represents a significant threat to the stability and quality of healthcare delivery. Healthcare organizations invest considerable resources in recruiting, onboarding, and training nursing professionals. The early departure of these individuals results in substantial financial burdens, including recruitment costs, vacancy coverage expenses, and decreased productivity of remaining staff. Furthermore, high turnover can erode team cohesion, increase workload and stress for remaining nurses, and potentially lead to burnout, further exacerbating the attrition problem. The loss of experienced nurses also diminishes the collective knowledge and expertise within healthcare settings, potentially impacting mentorship opportunities for new graduates and the overall quality of patient care. While quantitative studies have identified correlations between certain variables (e.g., workload, salary) and turnover, a deeper understanding of the subjective experiences and meanings attributed by nurses to their decisions to leave is needed to develop truly effective and sustainable retention strategies. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the lived experiences of nursing professionals who have voluntarily left their positions within the past year, aiming to uncover the essential themes and underlying factors that contributed to their decisions.

Theoretical Framework

This study will be guided by Parse's Human Becoming Theory. This nursing theory, developed by Rosemary Rizzo Parse, emphasizes the human experience of health as a process of becoming through complex interrelationships with the world. It focuses on three major themes:

• Meaning: This theme explores how individuals find meaning in their experiences, including their work environment, relationships with colleagues and patients, and their perceptions of their professional role. In the context of nurse attrition, this would involve understanding how nurses interpret and make sense of their workplace experiences, the significance they attach to various aspects of their jobs, and how these meanings influence their decisions to stay or leave.
• Rhythmicity: This theme acknowledges the paradoxical and ever-changing nature of human existence. It recognizes the simultaneous presence of opposing experiences, such as connection and separation, certainty and uncertainty, and stability and change. In this study, rhythmicity can help understand the fluctuating experiences of nurses in the workplace, the tensions they navigate between their professional ideals and the realities of their work environment, and how these dynamic experiences contribute to their decisions regarding retention.
• Transcendence: This theme focuses on moving beyond the present moment and embracing possibilities for the future. It involves individuals' capacity to envision and create their own paths. In the context of nurse attrition, transcendence can help understand how nurses envision their professional futures, the aspirations they hold, and how their current workplace experiences either align with or diverge from these envisioned possibilities, ultimately influencing their decisions to seek alternative employment.

Parse's theory is particularly relevant to this study as it prioritizes the lived experience and the subjective meaning attributed by individuals to their situations. It moves beyond a purely objective or behavioral approach to understanding human actions, aligning with the phenomenological methodology that seeks to uncover the essence of a phenomenon as experienced by those who have lived it. By exploring the meaning, rhythmicity, and transcendence within the nurses' experiences of their workplaces, this study aims to gain a deeper and more holistic understanding of the factors contributing to nurse attrition.

Study Question

What is the essence of the lived experiences of nursing professionals regarding their decisions to leave their workplaces?

Methodological Design

This study will employ a descriptive phenomenological design, specifically drawing upon the methodology articulated by van Manen (1990). Phenomenological research aims to describe the common meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of a concept or a phenomenon. This design is appropriate for exploring the in-depth experiences of nurses who have left their positions, seeking to understand the fundamental structures and essences of this phenomenon. Van Manen's approach emphasizes a hermeneutic-phenomenological perspective, involving a cyclical process of intuiting, analyzing, and describing the lived experience through careful reflection on participants' narratives.

The key characteristics of this design include:

• Focus on Lived Experience: The primary data source will be the narratives of nurses who have recently left their workplaces, capturing their subjective experiences and the meanings they ascribed to them.
• Intentionality: The study will focus on the phenomenon of deciding to leave a nursing position, exploring the intentionality and consciousness of the participants regarding this decision.
• Bracketing: While complete bracketing (suspending all preconceived notions) is considered an ideal, the researcher will engage in a process of reflexive journaling and self-reflection throughout the study to acknowledge and manage their own biases and assumptions about nurse attrition.
• Description of Essences: The goal of the analysis will be to identify the essential themes and invariant structures that constitute the lived experience of deciding to leave a nursing position, revealing the fundamental nature of this phenomenon.

Data Collection

Participants: A purposive sample of 10-15 registered nurses who have voluntarily left their full-time nursing positions within the past year will be recruited. Participants will be selected based on the following criteria:

• Registered Nurse (RN) or Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN/LVN) licensure.
• Minimum of two years of experience in their previous nursing role.
• Voluntarily resigned from their position within the 12 months preceding data collection.
• Willingness to share their experiences in a semi-structured interview.

Recruitment strategies will include:

• Online nursing forums and professional social media groups.
• Networking through professional nursing organizations.
• Flyers or announcements in healthcare settings (with ethical approval).

Data Collection Method: Data will be collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The interview protocol will be guided by open-ended questions designed to elicit rich descriptions of the participants' experiences leading up to their decision to leave. Example questions include:

• "Please tell me about your experiences in your previous nursing role."
• "Can you describe the circumstances that led you to consider leaving your position?"
• "What were the key factors that influenced your decision to resign?"
• "Describe the moment you decided to leave. What was that like for you?"
• "Looking back, what were the most significant aspects of your workplace experience that contributed to your decision?"
• "What are your hopes and expectations for your future career in nursing?"

Interviews will be audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim to ensure accurate representation of the participants' narratives. The interviews will continue until data saturation is reached, meaning no new significant themes emerge from the participants' accounts.

Sample Answer

A Phenomenological Study: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Nursing Professionals Regarding Workplace Retention

Introduction

The nursing profession, a cornerstone of healthcare systems worldwide, is facing a significant and persistent challenge: the attrition of experienced professionals. High turnover rates among nurses not only disrupt continuity of care and increase costs for healthcare organizations but also negatively impact the morale of remaining staff and potentially compromise patient safety. While various factors have been implicated in nurse turnover, a comprehensive understanding of the lived experiences of nurses who choose to leave their positions prematurely is crucial for developing effective retention strategies. This study aims to explore the essence of these experiences, uncovering the core reasons and contributing factors that influence nursing professionals' decisions to depart from their workplaces. By employing a phenomenological approach, this research seeks to provide rich, descriptive insights into the phenomenon of nurse attrition, ultimately informing evidence-based interventions to improve workplace retention.

Problem Statement