Nurses in Mauritius motivated by extrinsic rewards: a qualitative study of factors determining recruitment and career choices.

BACKGROUND

International studies have shown that motivation and career considerations related to nursing reveal that the decision is determined by a multitude of factors, generally distinguishing between the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and work values. Although changing values seem to be important with greater emphasis on personal development and a reduction in other-orientation and altruism, nursing still stress the caring component with a desire to help and care for others.

OBJECTIVE

To describe and analyze those factors and conditions influencing the decision to choose nursing as a career among men and women nurses in Mauritius. The objectives are to provide information on the nurses and their social background, their reasons for entering the nursing profession and to explore how nursing is perceived in a society with a different cultural and historical background. This will be compared with knowledge about recruitment to nursing in some developed as well as developing countries.

DESIGN AND SETTING

A qualitative study based on in-debt, semi-structured interviews and convenience sampling. Nurses of all grades working in five government hospitals and community health centers in the central and southern part of Mauritius, a small island situated in the Indian Ocean. The data were collected over a 5-month period during 2005-2006.

PARTICIPANTS

Individual interviews with 47 nurses, both men (27) and women nurses (20). The nurses came from different grades, age groups, religious and ethnic background.

RESULTS

Findings revealed that nursing is attractive as a career due to extrinsic rewards such as job security, good income and government employment, with all the privileges and social status that it entails. These conditions, together with paid education and possibilities for international migration, were the most important factors explaining the recruitment of nurses from both sexes. Most of them did not want to do nursing but entered it because of financial difficulties in the family, unemployment, lacking other opportunities or as a default of poor grades from secondary education.

CONCLUSIONS

The majority of the Mauritian nurses in the sample had a more pragmatic and materialistic approach to the nursing profession and hardly any emphasis on caring and a desire to help others. Nursing was considered a gender neutral occupation and a job like any other jobs. Entering the nursing profession is regarded as the achievement of considerable social mobility taken into account the predominantly working class background of most nurses.