Pharmacology and Physiology Due 24 hours)
Outline
Topic: Improving Nurse Retention
Thesis statement: The factors that influence nurses’ retention and their satisfaction at work include the patients, the nursing team itself, the nursing profession characteristics, the nurse managers as well as the relationship between the nurses and the physicians.
Introduction
A. Current problem: factors leading to dissatisfaction and high turnover among nurses.
B. Area of focus: ways of improving nurses retention
C. Key terms: factors, dissatisfaction, leadership, retention, nurses.
I. Background
A. Historical nurse retention overview: Leadership plays a very crucial role in regard to satisfaction and retention of employees in any field. Nurses are particularly affected and this has led to over 20% of cases of turnover in the national hospital.
B. Current nurse retention view: There is high nurses' dissatisfaction and turnover in both rural and urban set ups.
C. Gaps: Insufficient nurse satisfaction, nurse shortage, and poor management
II. Poor nursing management affect nurse retention
A. Poor leadership styles. Poor understanding of the nurse manager leadership by nurses and managers
B. Poor nurse manager characteristics lead to high nurse turnover
III. Shortage of nurses influences their job satisfaction thus affecting retention
A. High workload. There is so much work to be carried out by the few available nurses who end up working for long hours without breaks, work overtime and eventually get burnouts and perform poorly, are dissatisfied and thus resign.
B. Poor recruiting methods and poor ways of retaining nurses
IV. The nurse-physician relationship as a factor that perpetuates dissatisfaction thus decreasing retention
A. The vicious cycle of nurses' shortage leads to the poor nurse-physician relationship as few or no nurses are available to assist the physician making the nurses be at logger's head with the physician, they become uncomfortable and resign.
B. The general behavior of the parties is also crucial and without respect for each other, either of the party may feel dissatisfied, have a poor nurse-physician relationship and opt to resign, who may be the nurse, which in turn implies high turnover and decreased retention
V. Conclusion
A. Restatement of Thesis: Poor leadership and management styles, manager characteristics, nurse shortage, and poor nurse-physician relationship directly influence nurse satisfaction thus reduced retention of nurses.
B. Next step: There is a need for improvement of recruiting methods and ways of retention, nurse empowerment and use of better management and leadership styles. The pay should also be made better, working conditions ought to be improved and there should be a work-life balance. All these factors will assist in improving nurse retention.
References
Force, M. V. (2005). The relationship between effective nurse managers and nursing retention. Journal of nursing administration, 35(7-8), 336-341.
Kleinman, C. (2004). The relationship between managerial leadership behaviors and staff nurse retention. Hospital Topics, 82(4), 2-9.
Newman, K., Maylor, U., & Chansarkar, B. (2002). "The nurse satisfaction, service quality and nurse retention chain” Implications for management of recruitment and retention. Journal of Management in Medicine, 16(4), 271-291.