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Nurses’ intentions to leave nursing in Finland

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Abstract

The shortage of nurses is a problem in many countries. We examined how factors related to wage, work, job satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and workplace or demographic factors were associated with nurses’ intentions to switch from health care to non-health-care roles. Wage and share of income from shift work were negatively and statistically significantly related to nurses’ intention to leave the health care sector. However, some non-pecuniary variables, such as Possibility for Specialisation gained a positive, statistically significant association with job satisfaction and thereby decreased intention to change work sector. Therefore, not only economic factors influence the labour supply of nurses.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Lea Henriksson and Kirsti Santamäki for co-operation in collecting the data used in this study. The authors are grateful to the discussants and other participants in the Nordic Health Economists’ Study Group (NHESG 2006, Copenhagen) for valuable comments. Terhi Kankaanranta is grateful to the National Postgraduate School of Social and Health Policy Management and Economics, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, and the competitive research funding of the Pirkanmaa Hospital District for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere, 33014, Tampere, Finland

    T. Kankaanranta & P. Rissanen

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  1. T. Kankaanranta
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  2. P. Rissanen
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Correspondence to T. Kankaanranta.

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Kankaanranta, T., Rissanen, P. Nurses’ intentions to leave nursing in Finland. Eur J Health Econ 9, 333–342 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-007-0080-3

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