A new study has linked higher patient mortality rates to nurses’ intention to quit for the first time.
This has spotlighted the importance of job satisfaction in the healthcare sector.
Experts said that hospitals should view the increased number of nurses wanting to leave their profession as a “warning sign” that significant change is needed.
They emphasised that the study, published in the journal Health Policy, underscores the importance of addressing turnover, which can also lead to increased nurses' workloads.
There was also a "significant association" between nurses' intention to leave their jobs and patient mortality in hospitals.
Linda Aiken, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania in the US and co-author of the study, said: “Nurses want to leave their jobs when care conditions are poor and those same unfavourable care conditions are not good for patients either.”
“Nurses’ intention to leave hospitals is a warning sign that all is not well for the remaining nurses or for their patients,” she added.
The research is based on data from 37,000 patients aged 50 and above, who were hospitalised for at least two days in 15 Italian public hospitals in 2015. Responses from over 1,000 nurses are also included in the results. Staffing, workload, job satisfaction, intention to leave the profession, quality of care, and burnout were all topics covered.
“This is something new in the scientific literature, [but] on the other hand, is it surprising? No, because we already know that there is a link between nurses' well-being, nurse staffing levels, nurses' education competencies, and the quality of patient care,” said Dominique Vandijck, a professor of health economics, policy and innovation at the University of Ghent in Belgium.
“There is no [one size fits all] approach… From a government point of view, we definitely need a vision for the long term. So at least for ten, 15, maybe 20 years, healthcare needs to be a priority for governments, and there needs to be significant investment in healthcare,” he said.
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