Turnover of regulated nurses in long-term care facilities

Aims: To describe the relationship between nursing staff turnover in long-term care (LTC) homes and organisational factors consisting of leadership practices and behaviours, supervisory support, burnout, job satisfaction and work environment satisfaction.

Background: The turnover of regulated nursing staff [Registered Nurses (RNs) and Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs)] in LTC facilities is a pervasive problem, but there is a scarcity of research examining this issue in Canada.

Methods: The study was conceptualized using a Stress Process model. Distinct surveys were distributed to administrators to measure organisational factors and to regulated nurses to measure personal and job-related sources of stress and workplace support. In total, 324 surveys were used in the linear regression analysis to examine factors associated with high turnover rates.

Results: Higher leadership practice scores were associated with lower nursing turnover; a one score increase in leadership correlated with a 49% decrease in nursing turnover. A significant inverse relationship between leadership turnover and nurse turnover was found: the higher the administrator turnover the lower the nurse turnover rate.

Conclusion: Leadership practices and administrator turnover are significant in influencing regulated nurse turnover in LTC.

Implications for nursing management: Long-term care facilities may want to focus on building good leadership and communication as an upstream method to minimize nurse turnover.