Work motivation of nurses: a literature review.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this review is to describe nurses' work motivation from the perspective of staff nurses. This information would be useful for the development of motivation strategies and further research into nurses' work motivation.


METHODS
A thorough review of the research literature.


METHODS
The literature search was performed using four databases: CINAHL, PubMed, PsychINFO, and SocINDEX. Only studies that met the following criteria were selected for review: (1) were published between 1990 and 2009, (2) were written in English, (3) dealt with work motivation, (4) concerned working staff nurses, (5) involved empirical research, (6) clearly and explicitly provided the research results about the factors affecting nurses' work motivation. Altogether 24 studies met these criteria and were included in this review.


METHODS
Inductive content analysis was carried out to analyse and categorise the data.


RESULTS
Nursing research has neither clear understanding nor consensus about the concept of work motivation; nor has a universal definition been adopted. Despite limited empirical evidence it may be concluded that staff nurses appear to be motivated. Five categories of factors affecting their work motivation were identified: (1) work-place characteristics, (2) working conditions, (3) personal characteristics, (4) individual priorities, and (5) internal psychological states.


CONCLUSIONS
Further research is needed to gain a more comprehensive insight into nurses' work motivation and the factors affecting it. This can be achieved by defining the concept of work motivation as precisely as possible, working out a pertinent research methodology, and subsequently developing and testing a theoretical model of nurses' work motivation.
Department of Nursing Science, University of Tampere, Tartu, Finland. kristi.toode@ut.ee
Kristi
K
Toode
Pirkko
P
Routasalo
Tarja
T
Suominen
D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*