Nurses' Descriptions of Workplace Efforts to Improve Professional Well-being: An Analysis.

Abstract

Objective: To identify promising workplace strategies with the potential to improve nurse professional well-being.

Background: A mental health crisis exists among nurses. This crisis contributes to high rates of intent to leave, but little is known about workplace-based approaches that can improve nurse professional well-being.

Methods: Researchers inductively and deductively analyzed 1317 nurses' free-text responses to a question about their workplaces' effort to improve their professional well-being. Researchers compared responses from nurses who plan to leave their position to responses from nurses who did not.

Results: The most common response from both groups was that their workplace had made no effort. Nurses who intended to leave their jobs (40.8%) reported no effort was being implemented more often than nurses who did not (24.9%). The 2nd most common intervention was increased compensation such as incentive pay.

Conclusions: A lack of effort from workplaces may contribute to nurses' intent to leave and lower levels of professional well-being. Approaches that improve professional well-being include increased compensation and enhanced physical facilities.