Table 1.
Individual respondents’ views about aspects of nursing they would like to change (n = 271).
| Subcategories | Example/meaning unit |
|---|---|
| Category: maintenance factors | |
| Work conditions (139) | |
| Increase | |
| Shift work (32) | ‘Shiftwork (sic) (in my current position), more friendly hours, would be great to create the work/life balance’ |
| Staffing (30) | ‘Better staffing would not go astray either’ |
| Personal support (29) | ‘support for emotional issues and tools to help support patients and their families though traumatic situations and the time to do that’ |
| ‘As a first year nurse in my clinical area I have felt unsupported and thrown in the deep end. I understand that we are in busy times with little money but if there was anything i (sic) could change it would be how new graduate nurses are accepted into their placements. I feel many nurses need a big attitude adjustment about this and feel if we had a more positive response more young people like myself would stay in nursing’ | |
| Nurse‐patient ratio (11) | ‘The nurse‐Patient Ratio. I see 1 nurse to 5‐6 pts as a safety risk. At this ratio I feel you are unable to provide safe appropriate (sic) care. This is very dissatisfying (sic) as a nurse’ |
| work load… to allow us to spend more one on one time with patients’ | |
| Equipment (7) | ‘Management: get them to walk around the wards/unit, get them to help with a lift to realise the terrible/unsafe equipment we have to work with’ |
| Improve | |
| Work load (15) | work load… to allow us to spend more one on one time with patients’ |
| Paper work (15) | ‘less time spent doing paper work and computer work and more time with patients’ |
| Salary increase (55) | ‘The PAY’ |
| ‘Better pay and more benefits!!! Like health insurance etc.! Come on guys, get with the rest of the world!’ | |
| ‘Pay that reflects the hard work that we do and the impact we make in healthcare’ | |
| Relationships with peers (34) | |
| Bullying (15) | ‘bullying attitude of other nurses, especially the older nurses who don't believe in the way we were trained’ |
| ‘Nurses that bully other nurses, we need a great sense of team work to be able to do great things for our patients’ | |
| Attitudes (19) | ‘Nursing attitudes towards junior nurses. It is a common misconception that junior nurses have no knowledge or skills’ |
| ‘That being a new graduate nurse you are considered inherently incompetent even though your degree is all about proving you are. The difference between performing safely the fundamental competencies of nursing and not knowing about specific area policy and procedure is not recognised. Any lacking (sic) in obscure local policy is seen as reflection on your ability to be competent and safe at a fundamental level’ | |
| Relationships with supervisors (22) | |
| Better management (18) | That management recognized and respected the hard work that nurses do and showed appreciation!’ |
| ‘Put people persons in management positions. It seems that nurse managers tend to be people who went into management to get away from patients and therefore don't have very good interpersonal skills’ | |
| ‘I really enjoy the job, but the politics and pettiness of some of the management gets bad at times and often makes you feel like it would be easier to just leave and find an easier profession’ | |
| Decrease bullying by management (4) | ‘Better managers who spent the time to build up members of the team instead of cutting them down at the first opportunity (Horizontal violence)’ |
| ‘The bullying of management that has made all of the experienced staff leave’ | |
| Personal life (4) | ‘better work/life balance’ |
| ‘The feeling(sic) of duty to the place, e.g. (sic) feeling guilty asking for time off when the children are sick’ | |
| Category: motivation factors (26) | |
| Recognition (13) | ‘The respect from other health professional. The general lack of understanding (sic)of what the nursing profession is by the general public as well as other health’ |
| ‘feel nurses are incredibly valuable (sic) within society & we are not always given the recognition we deserve’ | |
| Work itself (7) | |
| Increase autonomy (4) | ‘more independence in practice’ |
| Decrease stress (3) | ‘just the stressful times’ |
| Advancement (5) | ‘more chance for promotion’ |
| Achievement (1) | ‘more availability postgraduate courses’ |
Numbers in brackets = number of comments per category/subcategory.