A comparative review of nurse turnover rates and costs across countries

Abstract

A significant proportion of turnover costs are attributed to temporary replacement, highlighting the importance of nurse retention. The authors suggest a minimum dataset is also required to eliminate potential variability across countries, states, hospitals and departments.

Nursing students' belongingness and workplace satisfaction: Quantitative findings of a mixed methods study

“…Reasons given for this include: poor job satisfaction and commitment to their employer, lack of socialisation, emotional exhaustion, dissatisfaction with workplace environments, poor interpersonal relationships with staff, and having witnessed and/or experienced bullying. In addition to the personal costs for the individual nurse, the financial costs associated with attrition are significant, ranging between $26,652 to $48,970 in Canada and Australia respectively (Duffield et al, 2014).…”

Analyzing U.S. nurse turnover: Are nurses leaving their jobs or the profession itself?

“…[26,27] Raup I et al showed that transformational leadership was associated with lower staff turnover trends in comparison with other leadership styles. [3,27] More importantly, studies pointed out that the nurses' intent to leave their workplace and the subsequent organizational turnover are influenced more by supervisors than by co-workers, which can be due to the increased importance of mentoring in the nursing field. [10,28] Studies have also specifically discussed the importance of teams and collaboration at the workplace to motivate employees to stay with an organization or within the nursing profession.…”

“…[1] Evidence suggests that increased nurse turnover results in decreased patient access, patient safety and quality of care leading to adverse patient outcomes. [2][3][4][5] Simultaneously, nurse turnover also has a spillover effect on the remaining RNs by increasing their workload and job stress which leads to burnout and subsequently to further turnover. [2,6] Nurse turnover can also adversely impact health care organizations' bottom line through higher recruitment and replacement costs.…”

Human resource management practices and nursing turnover

“…The cost of replacing each 'lost' nurse has been calculated at US$48,790 in Australia, $26,652 in Canada, and $20,561 in the United States. [4] Turnover rates are generally much higher among new hires and for recent nursing graduates. [5] Jones, [6,7] in a study of nursing turnover costs, characterizes nursing turnover as the process whereby nursing staff leave or transfer within an institutional environment.…”