[Study on empowerment factors for career continuity of hospital nurses].
OBJECTIVE
The resignation rate of nurses working in hospitals is extremely high. This study aims to identify both the factors related to the resignation of nurses and the empowerment factors supporting their job retention.


METHODS
In 2011 we conducted a Web-based questionnaire survey of nurses with less than 10 years of working experience. There were 25 survey items including the following reasons for choosing the current employment position, intention of continuing work, sense of fulfillment and the presence or absence of problems in the current workplace. In addition, nurses who previously had resigned were asked why they left their last workplace.


RESULTS
The reasons why they chose the current workplace were markedly different between the not-resigned (A group) and previously resigned (B group) nurses. As a result of cluster analysis, the reasons for resignation were classified into six clusters; "overwork", "burnout", "bad atmosphere", "work life balance factors", "working conditions" and "marriage".


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, it is shown that there is a positive correlation between the sense of fulfillment at work and the intention to do research work. It is suggested that encouragement of nurses to undertake research work is one of the empowerment factors supporting their job retention.
Department of Public Health, Health Management and Policy, Nara Medical University.
Hirosato
H
Kato
Yukie
Y
Ito
Aki
A
Yoshida
Shizue
S
Mizuno
Kumiko
K
Ogoshi
Tomoaki
T
Imamura
D000328:Adult; D002321:Career Choice; D005260:Female; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D009726:Nurses; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace