Intent to stay in nursing profession and predictors among nurses working in public hospitals of Eastern Ethiopia, a multi-center study

Abstract

Background

the desire to remain in the nursing field has become a serious problem across the globe, and a shortage of nurses shows gaps for the health care system in terms of cost, patients care cabability, and nursing care quality. The nursing profession is losing a lot of nurses. There is paucity of data on the degree and factors influencing intention to stay.

Objective

To asses the level of intent to stay in the nursing profession and associated factors among nurses employed at public hospitals of Eastern Ethiopia, a multi centere study.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 413 nurses employed at public hospitals of eastern Ethiopia from March 1 to 30, 2020. Participants were chosen via simple random sampling methods, with a lottery method. Data were gathered using standardised self-administered questionnaires that had been pre-tested and supervised by an interviewer. EpiData Version 4.6 was used to enter the data, which was then exported to SPSS Version 20 for analysis. Bivariable and multivariable analyses were used. An adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval was used to determine the association between the dependant and independent variables. Finally, factors were deemed statistically significant, if their p-value was less than 0.05. The Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic, with 0.254, and the omnibus test, with < 0.001, were used to assess the goodness of fit.

Results

Percentage of nurses intended to remain in nursing profession was 49.3 % (95 %CI: 46–55.9). Having dependent family members (AOR = 1.908, 95 %CI:1. 142–3.188), job satisfaction (AOR = 6.54, 95 %CI, 2.774–15.41), organizational commitment (AOR=0.301, 95 %CI, 0.127–0.713) and normative commitment (AOR = 3.617,95 %CI, 1.879–6.963) were all substantially correlated with the intention to stay.

Conclusion

This study demonstrated that nurses had low level of intent to stay in their profession. Having dependent family members, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and having a high normative commitment showed association with intent to stay. Such kind of unstability in profession altered quality nursing service. Therefore, strengthing nurses’ intent to stay requires enhancing their job happiness, autonomy, professional opportunity, and organizational commitment.