The turnover rate and the reasons for turnover among graduate nurses from public hospitals in Nepal

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to find out the rate and reasons for turnover, of graduate nurses from government hospitals in Nepal. The turnover considered in this study includes: transfer, promotion, resignation and long study level and half pay level which the nurses used to take before resigning from the post. Descriptive study was used and data existed between 1986-1990 were collected from the proposed hospitals to find out rate of turnover. All nurses are the sample of this study. A set of questionnaire was formulated under seven headings; individual, advancement. salary, social, work condition, supervisor and organization policy. An interview guideline of perception of nursing managers was also prepared. The contents of the questionnaires and interview guidelines were validated by seven of experts. Questionnaires were tested and retested in Nepal with similar subjects for the reliability. The reliability was checked for each items using Kappa statistics which ranged from 0.00-1 and 0.44-90 for the questionnaires and the interview guidelines respectively. The turnover rate was calculated by deriding the number of subjects turnovered in a fiscal year by average number of subjects in that year and multiplying by 100. The rate of turnover was 39.41%. The reasons for turnover from government hospitals as analysed by Multiple Logistic Regression Analysis include lack of posts in the hospital they worked, education and social problems. The reasons for turnover from government to the private sectors were salary, fringe benefits and some social problems. It is recommended that measures to cope with the problems include; examination of the entire human resource process, review of incentives, modification of management concepts, provision of a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the rate and reasons for turnover. Future study should focus on the turnover situation in different subgroups.