Turnover among nursing assistants: why they leave and why they stay.

Overall, the data from the study show that nursing assistants who were planning to leave their present employment within the next three months were younger, had been in their positions less time, were paid less, and were better educated than those who were planning to stay in their present jobs. Also, the assistants who were planning to leave were not planning to stay in nursing as a life's career. They were planning to leave their present jobs because they had less input into the planning of care and conferences on care, attended fewer in-service programs, and ranked their own nursing skills lower than their peers. Changing patient assignments on a daily basis was more often associated with plans to leave than was changing patient assignments weekly or never. Finally, nursing assistants who were planning to leave cared for more patients per shift than those who were planning to stay. Nursing assistants who were planning to leave their jobs imminently had been employed for 12 or fewer months more frequently than nursing assistants who were planning to stay. The leavers were also in their first nursing job more frequently than the latter group and seemed to be a more critical group as well: 27% of those who were leaving reported that they criticized the policy or procedure of their facility sometimes or even frequently, a higher percentage than almost any other variable tested in the study. Another variable that was different between the two groups was what they considered most important to them.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)