A Case Study: Turnover Among Nurses

In their research conducted in Kenya and Benin, Mathauer and Imhoff (2006) observed that both financial and non-financial were successful in addressing the issues of motivation and retention of health workers. They mentioned that various approaches should be used in addressing motivation of health workers, including supportive supervision, continuing education, transparent promotions, active staff involvement in the decision-making process, frequent performance appraisals as well as effort-based awards including performance-based bonus pay.

• Job content (job satisfaction…plus the perceived intrinsic value of work, intrinsic motivation, and intrinsic satisfaction

• Individual demographics and personal factors such as age (Tabatabai et al.,

1999). A high nursing turnover impacts serious challenges at all levels in healthcare delivery. The commonest negative influence of turnover in the context of the work environment is the inability of a health facility or organization to meet the patients’ needs and less time devoted to provide quality care to patients (Tai et al., 1998, Shields and Ward, 2001, Spilsbury et al., 2011). Increased turnover is also known to have a direct effect on patients’ safety resulting in medical errors, administration mistakes, and increased infection rates in patients (source). Shortage of nursing staff, resulting from turnover may have significant consequences on patients, even leading to patient injuries and deaths (Stolberg,

It also describes how the data was processed in order to realize the study objectives. The study limitations and ethical considerations are also discussed.

3.1 Study context

The study was conducted in Kisumu East Sub-County in Kisumu County. Kisumu County is one of the new devolved counties of Kenya, it was originally known as Kisumu District of the former Nyanza Province in western Kenya. Its headquarters is Kisumu City, also considered as an important urban area in western Kenya. The land area of Kisumu County totals 2085.9 km², with a total population of approximately 968,909 with an average fertility rate of 4.8 children per woman (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2010). Kisumu County borders Siaya County to the West, Vihiga County to the North, Nandi County to the North East, Kericho County to the East, Nyamira County to the South, and Homa Bay County is to the South West. The county has a shoreline on Lake Victoria, occupying northern, western and a part of the southern shores of the Winam Gulf. The County is divided into seven sub-counties. Kisumu East Sub-County, an electoral Sub-County under the larger Kisumu County has an area of approximately 135.90 square kilometres and a population of 150,124 persons (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics,