Exploring career choices of specialist nurse students: Their decision-making motives. A qualitative study.

Aims: To explore Registered Nurses' motives to undergo specialist training and to choose a particular speciality.

Design: A descriptive qualitative interview study.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted during 2021 with 20 Swedish specialist nurse students from different specialisation areas. Qualitative content analysis was used. The COREQ checklist was used to report the study.

Results: Specialist nurse students' motivations for further training were divided into three main categories with two sub-categories each. The main categories were 'toward new challenges and conditions in work life', 'contributions to the development and higher competencies in health care' and 'personal work and life experiences as ground for choice'.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrates the importance of motivating factors in the career choices of Specialist nurse students, such as personal challenges, desirable working conditions, career growth opportunities and personal experiences in the career choices. Creating a supportive work environment that helps to prioritise work-life balance and offers the development of new skills might help retain nurses.

No patient or public contribution: No patient or public contribution was used. However, if more nurses would choose to undergo specialist training, especially in areas facing significant shortages, it would most likely lead to improved health-related outcomes for patients or populations.