The nurse work environment, job satisfaction and turnover rates in rural and urban nursing units
Journal of Nursing ManagementPublished 8 September 2009Open access
Marianne Baernholdt, Barbara A. Mark
Citations174
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
Job satisfaction and turnover rates in rural and urban nursing units are associated with both nursing unit characteristics and the work environment, and these rates are higher in rural hospitals than in urban hospitals.
Abstract
Both rural and urban hospitals can improve nurse job satisfaction and turnover rates by changing unit characteristics, such as creating better support services and a work environment that supports autonomous nursing practice. Rural hospitals can also improve the work environment by providing nurses with more educational opportunities.
Keywords
PsychologyHealth ProfessionsNursing
Mail and internet surveys : the tailored design method
9,659 Citations2007Don A. Dillman
Organization Theory and Design
3,787 Citations1983Richard L. Daft
The Contingency Theory of Organizations
2,757 Citations2001Lex Donaldson
Journal of Applied PsychologySafety climate in industrial organizations: Theoretical and applied implications.
2,494 Citations1980Dov Zohar
It was shown that there is an agreement among employees' perceptions regarding safety climate in their company and that the level of this climate is correlated with safety program effectiveness as judged by safety inspectors.
Choice Reviews OnlineKeeping patients safe: transforming the work environment of nurses
1,147 Citations2005
This newest edition in the groundbreaking Institute of Medicine Quality Chasm series discusses the key aspects of the work environment for nurses and reviews the potential improvements in working conditions that are likely to have an impact on patient safety.
Medical CareNurse Burnout and Patient Satisfaction
976 Citations2004Doris C. Vahey, Linda H. Aiken +3 more
Improvements in Nurses’ work environments in hospitals have the potential to simultaneously reduce nurses’ high levels of job burnout and risk of turnover and increase patients’ satisfaction with their care.
American Journal of Public HealthRural Definitions for Health Policy and Research
962 Citations2005L. Gary Hart, Eric H. Larson +1 more
Careful attention to the definition of "rural" is required for effectively targeting policy and research aimed at improving the health of rural Americans.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationEffects of Hospital Care Environment on Patient Mortality and Nurse Outcomes
844 Citations2008Linda H. Aiken, Sean P. Clarke +3 more
Care environment elements must be optimized alongside nurse staffing and education to achieve high quality of care and patients had significantly lower risks of death and failure to rescue in hospitals with better care environments.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationEffects of Hospital Care Environment on Patient Mortality and Nurse Outcomes
804 Citations2009Linda H. Aiken, Sean P. Clarke +3 more
Medical CareImpact of Relational Coordination on Quality of Care, Postoperative Pain and Functioning, and Length of Stay
661 Citations2000Jody Hoffer Gittell, Kathleen M. Fairfield +9 more
Relational coordination across health care providers is associated with improved quality of care, reduced postoperative pain, and decreased lengths of hospital stay for patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty.
Journal for Healthcare QualityKeeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses
600 Citations2004Quality Chasm Series
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationPredicting Registered Nurse Job Satisfaction and Intent to Leave
524 Citations2003June H. Larrabee, Michelle Janney +4 more
Investigation of nurse attitudes, context of care, and structure of care on job satisfaction and intent to leave supported the influence of nurse attitude onJob satisfaction relative to other contributing factors.
Journal of Organizational BehaviorError orientation questionnaire (EOQ): reliability, validity, and different language equivalence
343 Citations1999Volker Rybowiak, Harry Garst +2 more
An Error Orientation Questionnaire (EOQ) was developed, consisting of eight scales on attitudes to and on coping with errors at work, containing error competence, learning from errors, error risk taking, error strain, erroranticipation, covering up errors.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationRevisiting Nurse Turnover Costs
288 Citations2007Cheryl B. Jones
A method to inflation adjust baseline nurse turnover costs using the Consumer Price Index is presented to gain current knowledge of organizational nurse turnover Costs when primary data collection is not practical and to determine costs and potential savings if nurse retention investments are made.
Applied Psychological MeasurementA Revised Index of Interrater Agreement for Multi-Item Ratings of a Single Target
253 Citations1999Michael K. Lindell, Christina J. Brandt +1 more
Journal of Interprofessional CareQuality through Collaboration: The Future of Rural Health
208 Citations2006Stephen F Wilson
This report addressing challenges to quality care in the rural regions of the United States is designed as a national health policy document and each chapter concludes with a section summarizing key findings and specific recommendations for federal action.
Annual Review of Nursing ResearchNursing Staff Turnover, Stress, and Satisfaction: Models, Measures, and Management
149 Citations1984Ada Sue Hinshaw, Jan R. Atwood
Models have been constructed and tested specifying the relationships among staff stress, satisfaction, other predictive factors, and voluntary/involuntary turnover.
American Journal of Public HealthHealth in Rural America: Remembering the Importance of Place
148 Citations2004Charles D. Phillips, Kenneth R. McLeroy
Historically, public health has been viewed through a variety of lenses, but that lens through which one sees an important part of the history of public health’s development as oscillation between a focus on health issues facing populations defining by their demographic characteristics and health issues in populations defined by their geographic location is of particular importance for public health professionals interested in rural health.
Journal of Nursing ManagementThe relationship between UK hospital nurse staffing and emotional exhaustion and job dissatisfaction
144 Citations2004Louisa Sheward, Jennifer Hunt +3 more
Significant relationships were found using the combined English and Scottish data between nurse patient ratios and (1) emotional exhaustion and (2) dissatisfaction with current job reported by nurses.
Journal of Safety ResearchDoes safety climate moderate the influence of staffing adequacy and work conditions on nurse injuries?
137 Citations2007Barbara A. Mark, Linda Hughes +5 more
It is suggested that positive work engagement and work conditions contribute to enhanced safety climate and can reduce nurse injuries.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationImpact on Organizational and Patient Outcomes
123 Citations2003Barbara A. Mark, Jeanne Salyer +1 more
This study focuses on professional nursing practice specifically at the nursing unit level, and uses a new analytic technique that permits examination of the simultaneous effects of professional Nursing practice on both organizational and patient outcomes.
PubMedThe early recognition of patient problems among medical-surgical nurses.
97 Citations2003Ptlene Minick, Susan Harvey
Because nurses' early recognition of patient problems is a key aspect in producing positive patient outcomes in acute care settings, the skill of early recognition, the language to describe it, and institutional support of the nurse to use it in a consistent way are critical to quality care.
Journal of Nursing ManagementNurses? perceptions of hospital work environments
93 Citations2007Linda M. Hall, Diane Doran
Perceptions of the quality of care at the unit level were found to have a statisticallysignificant positive influence on nurses' job satisfaction, and a statistically significant negative influence on Nurses' job pressure and job threat.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationFurther Evidence on the Magnet Recognition Program
74 Citations2005Diane C. Brady-Schwartz
This study of 470 staff nurses from both Magnet and non-Magnet settings supports other recent evidence that nurses in Magnet hospitals demonstrate significantly higher levels of job satisfaction and suggests that this degree ofJob satisfaction, along with higher levels with key elements in the Magnet work environment, have a positive link to retention.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationWork-Related Attributes of RN Job Satisfaction in Acute Care Hospitals
66 Citations2003Kathi Kendall Sengin
The work-related attributes that contribute to registered nurses’ job satisfaction are discussed, recognizing that other variables (eg, individual characteristics) may further influence satisfaction.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationThe Role of Social Support Networks for Rural Hospital Nurses
63 Citations2002Maura MacPhee, Jill Scott
This sample of nurses clearly delineated the types of leadership styles most beneficial to them, and communication of roles and expectations between staff and management can enhance nursing satisfaction in the workplace setting.
International Journal of Nursing StudiesRural hospital nurse's stressors and coping strategies: a survey
60 Citations2004Cheryl Marie LeSergent, Colleen J. Haney
A survey was undertaken to identify stressful situations of rural hospital nurses and to examine their stress level in relation to coping strategies, particularly social support, and indicated a positive relationship between nursing stress and emotion-focused coping and between stress and social support.
The Journal of Rural HealthCharacteristics of Registered Nurses in Rural Versus Urban Areas: Implications for Strategies to Alleviate Nursing Shortages in the United States
59 Citations2006Susan M. Skillman, Lorella Palazzo +2 more
Comparisons of characteristics of rural and urban registered nurses in the United States using data from the 2000 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses suggest strategies to reduce nurse shortages should consider differences in education, work patterns, and commuting behavior.
The Quarterly Review of Economics and FinanceMeasuring levels of technology in hospitals
59 Citations2004Joanne Spetz, Lisa Simonson Maiuro
The meaning of the term “hospital technology” is explored and measures of this concept are reviewed, the strengths and weaknesses of each definition are explicated, and several measures of hospital technology that have been used in the literature are reviewed.
Choice Reviews OnlineOrientation to nursing in the rural community
56 Citations2001
The meaning of Managed Care for Rural America, Rural Nursing in the United States, and the Link Between Rural Theory & Evidence-Based Practice are examined.
Nursing Administration QuarterlyA Theoretical Model for Nursing Systems Outcomes Research
48 Citations1996Barbara A. Mark, Jeanne Sayler +1 more
A comprehensive theoretical model is described that takes into account the relationships among the organization's context, its structure, and both patient and nursing administrative outcomes.
Health Care For Women InternationalWOMEN'S HEALTH AND COMMUNITY HEALTH NURSING PRACTICE IN GEOGRAPHICALLY ISOLATED SETTINGS: A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE
40 Citations1998Beverly Leipert
The discussion section identifies major gaps in the literature and suggests implications for community health nursing practice and research, as well as strategies for policy and programming to improve women's health and community health Nursing practice in geographically isolated settings in Canada.
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationExploring Nursing Issues in Rural Hospitals
38 Citations2005Robin Newhouse
The impact of legislative, strategic, and organizational changes on nursing in rural hospitals since 1995 is explored to explore the impact of policy and strategy decisions on rural nursing.
Applied Nursing ResearchRecruitment barriers in rural community hospitals: a comparison of nursing and nonnursing factors
29 Citations1998Terry D. Stratton, Jeri Dunkin +2 more
Findings offer encouragement to nursing administrators who are faced with the difficulties of attracting RNs to rural practice settings that barriers related to individual nursing staffs are likely to be far more amenable to change than those associated with rural environments.
PubMedDevelopment and Psychometric evaluation of an instrument to measure staff nurses' perception of uncertainty in the hospital environment.
29 Citations1996Jeanne Salyer
JONA The Journal of Nursing AdministrationTechnological and Environmental Characteristics of Intensive Care Units
27 Citations1994Barbara A. Mark, Alice C. Hagenmueller
Significant differences among nine intensive care units regarding both the nature of their work and their environments were found, providing information that can be used in staffing decisions, nurse/physician interaction, and staff nurse and managerial recruitment.
Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health CareNursing Workforce Issues in Rural and Urban Settings: Looking at the Difference in Recruitment, Retention and Distribution
25 Citations2000Kathleen B. LaSala
Results revealed that using the FTE (Full time equivalency) vacancy formula, rural health care settings reported the lowest vacancies; however, when major vacancies did exist, they were greater in the rural settings.
PubMedSix-part series on the state of the RN workforce in the United States.
24 Citations2005Peter I. Buerhaus
This series begins with an analysis of RNs' perceptions of the current nursing shortage and whether they perceive the shortage has gotten better or worse over the past few years.
Journal of Nursing MeasurementDevelopment and Psychometric Evaluation of an Instrument to Measure Staff Nurses’ Perception of Uncertainty in the Hospital Environment
23 Citations1996Jeanne Salyer
Principal components analysis of the PEU-H indicated that the factor structure represented one factor that explained 37.3% of the variance and internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alpha was acceptable for a scale in the early stages of development.
Journal of Nursing Care QualityCreating Nursing Research Opportunities in Rural Healthcare Facilities
22 Citations2004Angeline Bushy
This article focuses on creating nursing research opportunities in small healthcare facilities located in rural settings.
The Journal of Rural HealthImproving Work Environment Perceptions for Nurses Employed in a Rural Setting
19 Citations2007Susan L. Teasley, Kathleen A. Sexton +4 more
The follow-up survey revealed improvements in all areas measured by the Individual Workload Perception Scale, with the greatest improvement in the perception of the work environment noted among night nurses.
Journal of Professional NursingService-Linked Scholarships, Loans, and Loan Repayment Programs for Nurses in the Southeast
12 Citations2008Samir I. Thaker, Donald E. Pathman +2 more
Support-for-service programs are a substantial component of federal and state nursing workforce distribution efforts in the Southeast and future research should identify and describe these programs for other regions, measure outcomes, and offer recommendations to maximize their effectiveness in alleviating nursing shortages.
