U-M study finds states with high COVID-19 caseloads did not see significant shifts in where nurses worked, suggesting other factors drove job changes
Study: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Registered Nurse Employment Across Settings (DOI:10.1097/MLR.0000000000002294)
The COVID-19 pandemic did not push nurses out of hospitals or other care settings as feared, but nurses left their primary jobs at nearly double the rate from 2018 to 2022, a new University of Michigan study found.
The study, which appeared in Medical Care, also found that the size of the nursing workforce grew from 3.27 million to 3.57 million during the same period.
Researchers examined whether nurses in states with higher COVID-19 hospital caseloads were more likely to shift away from inpatient hospitals, long-term care, outpatient care or nonclinical roles, said Charlotte Ahr, U-M nursing Ph.D. candidate and the study's lead researcher.
The findings highlight the impact of COVID-19 on job changes within the nursing profession, and gives policymakers and healthcare experts insights into underlying reasons why nurses left their primary jobs, Ahr said.
"Because we found the changes in nurse employment weren't driven by whether states had high COVID caseloads, we explored the reasons that nurses left their jobs," Ahr said. "Always rising to the top were stressful work environments, burnout and inadequate staffing."
Other takeaways:
- About 13% of registered nurses reported that they left their primary nursing position in 2018, compared with 24% in 2022.
