A Study of Turnover Factors and Occupational Stress among Nursing Staff at a Medical Center

A Study of Turnover Factors and Occupational Stress among Nursing Staff at a Medical Center

Purpose: A low percentage of licensed nurses are employed and there is high nurse turnover in Taiwan. We aimed to investigate the impact of turnover factors and occupational stress among clinical nursing staff in Taiwan, to help medical managers identify occupational stress and turnover factors, reduce occupational pressure, improve the working environment, and ultimately prevent the loss of professional nurses, reduce expenditure, and improve the quality of nursing care.
Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted using a questionnaire to investigate the exit factors and occupational stress among nursing staff leaving a medical center between January and December, 2017. Scales were used to measure workload, job autonomy, nurse-patient relationships, team relationships, occupational hazard exposure, and violence hazard exposure. Overall, 126 questionnaires were administered; 123 were recovered (recovery rate, 97.6%). Data was analyzed via descriptive statistics, t-tests, variance analysis, Scheffe’s post-hoc analysis, and Pearson’s correlation analysis.
Result: Job characteristics was the major turnover factor and positively, significantly correlated with other turnover factors. The impacts of interpersonal interaction, and organizational and environmental factors were significantly higher in critical care nurses than nurses in general wards (p<.01). Workload was the highest occupational stress, followed by job autonomy, exposure to occupational hazards, nurse-patient relationships, team relationships, and exposure to violence. Critical care nurses reported higher stress from nurse-patient relationships and team relationships than nurses in general wards (p<.05).
Conclusion: A positive working environment is essential to reduce nurses’workload. Provision of sufficient support and care, strengthening violence prevention and management, and care and simulation training via cross-disciplinary cooperation are recommended to reduce occupational stress resulting from poor communication and thus stabilize nursing manpower.