Impact of AF Nursing Retention Completion Phase

The retention of the best and brightest nurses is critical to our nation's defense and the health and well being of a fit force. This study addresses the TSNRP focus area Recruitment and Retention of the Work Force'Research designed to identify factors associated with retention of nurses in the military health care system. The aims of this study are to use an instrument developed in a previous TNSRP study to assess the positive and negative impacts of deployment on military nurses. This research will use a large-scale survey of active duty Air Force nurses to model the interrelationships of positive and negative impact factors with regard to intent to continue with or leave military nursing careers. The project will synthesize evidence and develop recommendations for policy changes and incentives to improve the quality of the deployment experience for nurses, to enhance the positive aspects of the deployment experience, mitigate the negative, and therefore retain military nurses in active duty. This study will use a questionnaire to determine the positive and negative impacts of deployment on active duty and reserve nurses in the Air Force and the relationship of these impact elements to the intent of nurses to remain in the military. The findings of this study can be used as evidence for policy making related to deployment length, frequency, and support systems to improve the retention of a critical workforce'military nurses.

Final Report is available on NTRL at: https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/dashboard/searchResults/titleDetail/PB2013101...