Nursing Sabbatical in the Acute Care Setting: What Is the Evidence?

Abstract

Borrowing from the successes in academia and other non-nursing professions, a human capital investment opportunity exists to design and test nursing sabbaticals. The authors identified a nursing sabbatical as a viable option, which can enhance nursing retention and revitalization.

Interventions to Reduce Adult Nursing Turnover: A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews

“…The included reviews were conducted between 2008 and 2014. All were published in English and originated from Canada [ 32 - 35 ], the United States [ 36 , 37 ] and Taiwan [ 38 ]. Five reviews focused on the effectiveness of retention strategies targeted at registered nurses [ 33 , 38 ] or newly graduated nurses [ 34 - 36 ].…”

“…Five reviews focused on the effectiveness of retention strategies targeted at registered nurses [ 33 , 38 ] or newly graduated nurses [ 34 - 36 ]. One review aimed to examine the relationship between managers’ leadership practices and staff nurses’ intent to stay in their current position [ 32 ], and another focused on a single intervention: sabbaticals as strategy to enhance nursing retention and revitalisation to generate positive outcomes [ 37 ].…”

“…The AMSTAR scores for the reviews ranged from three to seven. Of the reviews, six [ 32 - 36 , 38 ] were judged of moderate quality and one [ 37 ] of low quality. The assessment of each review against the AMSTAR criteria is presented in Fig.…”

Inactive nurses in Taiwan: human capital, intention to return to hospital nursing, and incentives for returning

“…() and Swenty et al . () have investigated the relationships between nursing performance, turnover evaluations and human capital investments in hospitals. There is a paucity of research addressing the loss of human capital represented by inactive nurses and factors that influence nurses' return to clinical work.…”

“…Moreover, many scholars have used human capital to identify re-entry factors when people consider rejoining the workforce (Brown & Jones 2004, Miller 2011). In the nursing field, only Rondeau et al (2009) andSwenty et al (2011) have investigated the relationships between nursing performance, turnover evaluations and human capital investments in hospi-tals. There is a paucity of research addressing the loss of human capital represented by inactive nurses and factors that influence nurses' return to clinical work.…”