Provincial Survey of New Manitoba Nursing Graduates

Provincial Survey of New Manitoba Nursing Graduates Report Prepared by the Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research Faculty of Nursing University of Manitoba May, 2013 Diana Clarke, RN, PhD Associate Dean, Research Faculty of Nursing, University of Manitoba Director—Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research (MCNHR) James Plohman, MSc Research Technician, MCNHR Diane Cepanec, MA Associate Director, MCNHR © 2013 1 Table of Contents Executive Summary…………...….……..…………………………………………………Page 1. Introduction………………...………………………………………………………………Page 2. Purpose…….………...……...………………………………………………………………Page 2. Study Procedure…………....………………………………………………………………Page 2. Data Collection…...………...………………………………………………………………Page 3. Characteristics of New Nursing Graduates…...…………….……………………………Page 4. Employed New Nursing Graduates Current Employment Characteristics……………...………………...…………Page 7.. Initial Employment Search……….………………...…………………………..Page 9. The 6 Months Since Graduation…....………..…………………………………Page 11 Employment Satisfaction…….………………………………………………...Page 13 Employed Outside of Manitoba…..…………………....………………………Page 15 Unemployed New Nursing Graduates ..…………..…..…………………………………Page 16 New Nursing Graduates Seeking Employment Outside Manitoba..….…..…………...Page 19 Acknowledgements This project was funded by the Nurses Retention and Recruitment Fund of Manitoba. Assistance in gathering contact information for the graduates was provided by Suzanne Wowchuk and staff from the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, Susan Barbeau (University College of the North), Tracey Collyer (Brandon University), Dan- iel Gagné (Université de Saint-Boniface) and Linda Katz (Red River College). Student Research Assistants employed by the Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research conducted telephone survey interviews (Angela Miller, Leia Kehler, Rachel Usick). 2 Executive Summary Most of the 256 nurses surveyed were employed (n=237; 93%) with only eight of these employed outside of Manitoba in other Canadian provinces. All 8 new nursing graduates employed outside of Manitoba were working in other Canadian provinces with personal reasons related to family/friends (n=6) being the most commonly selected factor influencing their decision to leave Manitoba. Of the 237 employed nurses, 41% (n=116) were in full-time positions and half (n=107; 50%) were in part- time positions with the remainder holding multiple (n=8; 3%) or casual (n=11; 5%) positions. Collectively, almost half of the employed graduates were employed in Surgery (n=54; 23%) or Medicine (n=52; 22%). The most commonly cited factors that lead to nurses accepting their first nursing position were that the position was in the practice area in which they wanted to work (n=160) and that they had their senior clinical practicum in the same facility (n=142). Almost two-thirds of the working graduates (n=153; 65%) have held only one nursing position since grad- uating, one-quarter have held two positions (n=64; 27%) and 8% (n=18) have held 3 or more positions. Most (n=212; 91%) of the new nursing graduates were satisfied with their employment status. Ninety (91%) of the full time nurses were satisfied with their employment, 104 (90%) of the part-time graduates were satisfied with their employment. All of the nurses with multiple positions (n=8) and most of the nurses with casual employment (10 of 11) were satisfied with their employment type. Eleven employed graduates and 3 unemployed graduates reported that they are currently seeking employment outside of Manitoba (n=14). Family/personal reasons (n=9), travel and weather (n=8) and professional opportunities (n=8) were the most commonly selected opportunities attracting new nurses to work outside of Manitoba. 3 1 Introduction New graduates are the future of the nursing work force in Manitoba. Unless health care institutions find ways to recruit and retain more nurses, nursing shortages will seriously affect the delivery of health ser- vices to patients in Manitoba. In order to develop good recruitment and retention strategies, it is important to know where new nurses are finding employment and what is attracting them to work in a chosen loca- tion and practice area. Purpose The purpose of the survey was to gather information about new nursing graduate’s employment status, employment intentions and employment preferences. In addition, feedback on the education they received as well as their plans for further education were also collected. Study Procedure With funding from the Nurses Recruitment and Retention Fund, and project assistance from each of the participating nursing schools and the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, the Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research (MCNHR) conducted a survey of graduates from RN accredited nursing programs in Manitoba (Brandon University, University of Manitoba, University College of the North, Université de Saint-Boniface and Red River College) approximately 6 months after they graduated. The MCNHR coordinated provincial data collection, analysis and reporting. A site coordinator at each participating RN program was responsible for distributing and collecting a contact information form from all potential graduates of their program prior to graduation. On the graduate contact information form, the graduates were asked to provide the MCNHR with a permanent postal address, email address and phone number at which they could be reach 6 months post-graduation. They were also asked for their consent to authorize the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba (CRNM) to provide the MCNHR with the email address, phone number and mailing address associated with their CRNM membership 6 months after graduation. The contact information obtain from the CRNM was used to ensure up-to-date contact information was available for contacting the graduates. The site coordinators were responsible for providing the MCNHR with all of the signed contact information forms in July, November 2011 and February, 2012. The MCNHR then provided the CRNM with all the names of graduates who had given their consent for the MCNHR to collect their postal address, email address, and/or phone number. Applicable copies of the signed contact information forms were provided to the CRNM as proof that the members had given their consent for the CRNM to release their contact information to the MCNHR. The CRNM conducted a search of their membership records to ex- tract the applicable contact information of all consenting graduates. This information was then forwarded on to the MCNHR coordinator for use in conducting the survey in April, August and November, 2013. Contact information was obtained for a total of 340 (82%) of the 414 nurses that graduated during the survey time period. 4 2 Data Collection In April, August and November 2012, attempts were made to contact a total of 340 nurses who had graduated in September/October, 2011, February and May/June 2012 respectively. The Red River College diploma program graduates complete their programs at various time points throughout the year but only officially graduate in May. Therefore, these graduates were interviewed with the graduate group that immediately fol- lowed the date at which they completed their program. The nurses were contacted through online, telephone and postal mail delivery methods. In total, 256 of 340 (75%) of the nurses who were contacted, completed the survey. This was 62% (256 of 414) of the nurses that graduated during the survey time period. In total, there were 205 graduates from the University of Manitoba, 46 from Brandon University, 59 from the Red River College diploma program, 46 from the Red River College/University of Manitoba Joint Baccalaureate of Nursing Program, 29 from the Université de St. Boniface and 29 from the University College of the North. The survey was administered through the use of a secure online survey provider called Fluidsurveys.com. A survey invitation email containing a web-link to the online survey was sent to all available graduate’s email addresses. Graduates who did not respond to the initial email request were sent two reminder emails. All three emails sent to potential participants contained a web-link they could follow to opt-out of participating in the survey. No one chose to use this opt-out link. Graduates who did not respond to the email survey request were contacted by telephone to conduct the survey over the phone and let them know that they could complete the survey online if they preferred. They were called at varying times of the day and evening to attempt to ask them to complete the survey. After at least 6 attempts were made to contact the graduates by telephone, the remaining non-responders were sent a hardcopy to their postal addresses along with a postage paid envelope to use in returning the completed survey. A total of 176 (69%) survey participants completed the survey online, 75 (29%) completed it over the telephone and 5 (3%) completed the hardcopy and returned it by postal mail. Almost a third (n=51; 29%) of the survey participants that completed the survey online did not do so until they received at least one telephone call requesting their participation in the survey. All data collected from the survey was collected into a Provincial Nursing Graduate Database in the form of an SPSS data file housed in the MCNHR. The employment data of those surveyed are presented in this report. 5 3 Characteristics of New Nursing Graduates Figure 1. Age of new nursing graduates (n=256) Figure 1 shows the age distribution

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