An AMN Healthcare survey reports that half of all nurses say they plan to make a career change over the next three years.
Of the 1,399 respondents to 44% say they will probably change the course of their careers to something less demanding between now and 2013. A total 28% say that, if they have their way, they won’t be at their current job one year from now. And 41% say they would not choose nursing if they had the chance to do it over again. Some current industry projections indicate that there could be a shortage of up to 250,000 nurses by 2025.
Meanwhile, a separate survey from Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, finds that 75% of all nurses surveyed experienced some form of violence or abuse on the job. Only 16% of incidents were officially reported. Nearly all (92%) reported verbal abuse; 69% reported physical threats, while 52% experienced physical assault.
Roughly 30% of the nurses did not report incidents because they felt workplace violence was part of the job. A total of 50% said that when they had reported an event, senior managers had failed to take action. The results are published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.