IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0251890.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Registered nurses’ perceptions on the factors affecting nursing shortage in the Republic of Vanuatu Hospitals: A qualitative study

Author

Listed:
  • Adel Tutuo Tamata
  • Masoud Mohammadnezhad
  • Ledua Tamani

Abstract

Background: Registered nurse has a vital role in delivering healthcare services to individual, family and community. One of the main challenges that health system facing globally is the shortage of nursing workforce. Vanuatu as a Pacific county is also facing the shortage issue and the impact on the registered nurses’ performance. Methods: A qualitative study was used to collect data from 25 registered nurses in three randomly selected hospitals in Vanuatu between 4th to 14th September, 2020. A semi-structured open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data using face-to-face in-depth interviews. The data were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis process. Results: Four themes were identified including; Difficult working conditions, Reinforcing factors and Perceived risks. Sub themes for difficult working condition were heavy workload, lack of workforce and unusual working hours. Sub themes for reinforcing factors were lack of support, lack of opportunities and advancement in nursing practice. Sub themes for perceived risks were stress, physical and mental risk, and social and family risks. Conclusion: This study has identify factors affected shortage of current nursing workforce and the impact it has on registered nurses. Broad themes and sub-themes were identified which highlighted the impact of nursing shortage to registered nurses and the effects on their performance which includes stress or moral distress from work overload and lengthy hours shift which impact the nurses’ physical, psychological, social, and family relationship, and lack of leadership support. The findings can be helpful to policy makers at the decision-making level to resolve the nursing workforce shortage and its effects in the future by refining and developing relevant policies that will address and strengthen the nursing workforce to meet the demand and improve delivery of quality health services to all individual.

Suggested Citation

  • Adel Tutuo Tamata & Masoud Mohammadnezhad & Ledua Tamani, 2021. "Registered nurses’ perceptions on the factors affecting nursing shortage in the Republic of Vanuatu Hospitals: A qualitative study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0251890
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251890
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251890
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251890&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0251890?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0251890. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.