Exploring factors of job retention among nurses working in Rwandan District Hospital

Abstract

Background: one of the strategies to address the problem of healthcare professional shortage is to retain those who are in the service. Though various factors affecting job retention among nurses have been elaborated, it was revealed that these factors can’t work for the entire group, because each group of nurses depending on them differs from one group of nurses to the other. Objective: Therefore the aim of this study was to explore factors that affecting nurses’ job retention. Methodology: Descriptive research study design and quantitative research approach were adopted in this research, the sample size was 83, data were collected with the help of a structured questionnaire while statistical analysis tool SPSS version 21 were used to analyze data . The study findings are presented as frequencies and percentages in the tables. For analytical statistics, the Pearson’s Chi-square Tests was used with Fisher Exact Tests where appropriate. The level of significance was set at p<0.05.* 95 CI. Results: It has been shown in this study that the majority of nurses agreed and strongly agreed that they were committed to hospital success 66.3% and 22.9% respectively while on the side of hospital loyalty, 57.8% agreed that they are royal to the hospital, confirming that nurses are prepared to serve longer the hospital. About the factors encouraging and hindering for nurses’ job retention the majority of nurses (62.7%) confirmed that they can use skills learned in training at work, while 49.4% agreed that the hospital helps them in professional development. On rewards and other incentives, 61.4% of respondents agreed that there are some incentive and promotion. In Strategies to increase nurses’ retention, the majority of the respondents (61.4%) agreed that the hospital should improve the physical conditions. Conclusion: It was found that nurse working at Gisenyi district hospital are committed to stay working for the hospital. While the factors affecting nurse intensions to stay were found to be organization commitment, identification of training needs, rewards and compensation, personal feeling of loyalty to the hospital, training and professional development opportunities, use of knowledge and behaviors learned, , and assurance of job security. The strategies to retain more nurses were found to be improving physical working conditions, Improving Human resource management, working in transparency, improving living conditions.