Employment Problems of Nursing School Graduates

Abstract

Significance. Employment in a specialty obtained in a medical secondary specialized educational institution is an important stage in the professional cycle of nurses, affecting the nursing staff development. Implementation of a sociological research method in order to study problems in this area makes it possible to obtain information necessary for developing an evidence-based personnel policy in health. The purpose of the study: to conduct a sociological study of the problems of employment of nursing school graduates who started their professional work in health care facilities of the Irkutsk region in 2018-2020. Material and methods. The authors have used specially designed questionnaires containing 25 questions to survey 595 graduates of 5 nursing schools in the Irkutsk region completed their studies up to three years ago (in 2018-2020). Before the survey, the questionnaire was piloted in the studied population of the respondents. Prior to the survey the authors have evaluated the sufficient number of the respondents using the appropriate method for relative values in non-repeatable sample. The authors have also estimated the confidence intervals for p <0.05. Results. Direct employment offers from a medical organization and nursing schools accounted for an insignificant share (6.2% and 3.5%, respectively) in information process about potential employment. Only 21.4 and 17.7% of the respondents per 100 indicated importance of measures taken by the future employer and measures implemented by a medical institution, respectively, while selecting the place of employment. As such measures, respondents hardly mentioned meetings with potential employers and visiting a potential job (9.1 and 6.9 of the respondents per 100, respectively). Almost a third of the respondents noted lack of measures for professional adaptation (27.2%) and social support (30.4% per 100 respondents). Conclusion. The presented results made it possible to study the process of employment of mid-level care providers from various positions, including evaluation of the subjective factors that could be explored though such surveys only. They are important components of the personnel policy in health, insuring its evidence basis and development.