Age-dependent relationships between work ability, thinking of quitting the job, and actual leaving among Italian nurses: A longitudinal study
Section snippets
Background
In Italy, since the early 1970s fertility rates have declined steeply and are today among the lowest in the world. As decreased fertility rates have been accompanied by an increase in longevity, Italy exhibits today the highest dependency ratio among the OECD countries (OECD, 2000). In addition, in Italy older workers tend to exit the labour market relatively early. In 2002, only 56% of males and 27% of females in the age group 50–64 were still active at the labour market. Large-scale pension
Sample and procedure
Between autumn 2002 and spring 2003, data were collected from 5504 out of the 7447 Italian nurses that were recruited for the study (response rate 73.9%). The respondents were employed at 127 different establishments nested within 16 wider healthcare organizations (4673 nurses from nine hospitals, 179 nurses from five nursing homes and 620 nurses from two home care institutions). The institutions were selected by means of a stratified sampling procedure, with strata defined on the basis of
Results
The socio-demographic characteristics of the samples are shown in Table 2. Sample distribution remained about the same from the baseline and both the follow-up and the exit samples. Owing to early retirement opportunities, most of our nurses in the baseline sample were younger than 45 years (78.4%). They were mostly female, even if male nurses represented a significant part of the Italian sample (25.7%). In fact, Italy reported the highest prevalence of male nurses among the countries
Reflections on the outcomes
As a whole, in our study the proportion of Italian registered nurses with different form of thinking of quitting, or that actually left their job, was higher among those perceiving their work ability to be poor or moderate. However, thinking of quitting and actual leaving were also observed, though to a lower extent, among nurses perceiving their work ability to be good or excellent. This may indicate that actual or intended leaving may be also related to factors other than a nurse's perceived
Conflicts of interest
None.
Funding
The NEXT-Study (Nurses’ Early Exit Study) was initiated by SALTSA (Joint Programme for Working Life Research in Europe) and financed by the European Union within the Fifth Framework Programme (QLK6-CT-2001-00475). Key action no. 6.3. The population and disabilities.
Ethical approval
The NEXT-Study design was approved by the ethical committee of the University of Wuppertal in Germany.
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