Other Titles
Effect of Personal, Organizations, & Work Attributes on Long-Term Care Nurses’ Intent to Stay [Title Slide]
Abstract
A stable workforce is key to creating and maintaining a positive work environment, enhancing productivity, reducing adverse events, and lowering recruitment and orientation costs (De Vries et al., 2023). Stability in staffing of long-term care (LTC) facilities is particularly important given the vulnerability of the residents and increasing complexity of their physical and psychosocial care needs (Calver et al., 2025; Virdo & Daly, 2025). However, before action can be taken to address high turnover rates among LTC staff (Gandhi et al., 2021), factors influencing such decisions need to be understood.
PURPOSE: To examine extent that LTC nurses’ intent to stay can be explained by personal characteristics as well as their perceptions of work engagement, the organizational context, and overall job satisfaction.
METHOD: Cross-sectional data were collected by the Atlantic Research Collaboration on Long-Term Care (ARC-LTC) to examine and address factors affecting quality of work-life for LTC staff and ultimately resident outcomes. Methods used for participant recruitment, survey design, and data collection were based on approaches developed by the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) consortium at the University of Alberta (www.trecresearch.ca). Stratified random sampling was used to recruit 53 LTC facilities in Canada’s four Atlantic provinces (Keefe et al., 2025). An online survey was completed by 724 nurses (39% RNs). Regression and structural equation modeling techniques were employed.
FINDINGS: Nurses’ intent to stay was partially explained by three personal characteristics (age group, role RN/LPN, birthplace), level of work engagement, and three aspects of organizational context (culture, slack in staffing, and leadership). Entry of job satisfaction further improved the explanatory ability. The model explained 41% of the variability in nurses’ scores for intent to stay. Nurses who were older, employed as a RN, born outside of Canada and expressed higher levels of work engagement, more positive views about the culture, staffing, and leadership in their workplace, and higher job satisfaction tended to have a stronger intent to stay.
CONCLUSION: Quality of work-life for LTC nurses is affected not only by the nature of their work but also the context in which they work. Further work is needed to uncover differences in how RNs and LPNs perceive their work and whether these differences may reflect their educational preparation and role identity.
Notes
References:
Calver, J., Rahmen, F., Reno, N., & Sun, W. (2025). Enhancing staffing stability in long-term care: Insights from nurses and personal support workers. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 40(3), 279-285. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000851
De Vries, N., Lavreysen, O., Boone, A., Bouman, J., Szemik, S., Baranski, K., Godderis, L., & De Winter, P. (2023). Retaining healthcare workers: A systematic review of strategies for sustaining power in the workplace. Healthcare, 11, Article 1887. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11131887
Gandhi, A., Yu, H., & Grabowski, D.C. (2021). High nursing staff turnover in nursing homes offers important quality information. Health Affairs, 40(3), 384-391. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00957
Keefe, J.M., McCloskey, R., Hodgins, M.J., McArthur, C., MacKenzie, A., Weeks, L.E., & Estabrooks, C.A. (2025). Examining quality of work life in Atlantic Canadian long-term care homes: Protocol for a cross-sectional survey study. JMIR Publications, 14, Article e66338. doi: 10.2196/66338
Virdo, G., & Daly, T. (2025). Turnover contemplation in long-term care: Examining personal and structural variables in Canada. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA), 26, Article 105710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2025.105710
Sigma Membership
Mu Sigma
Type
Presentation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Cross-Sectional
Research Approach
Quantitative Research
Keywords:
Long-Term Care, Workforce, Long-Term Health Care, Quality of Work Life, Nurses' Attitudes, Job Satisfaction of Nurses, Nurse Retention, Intent to Stay
Recommended Citation
Hodgins, Marilyn J.; McArthur, Caitlin; Keefe, Janice M.; Audas, Rick; Estabrooks, Carole; McCloskey, Rose; and Murphy, Gail Tomblin, "Effect of Personal, Organizational, and Work Attributes on Long-Term Care Nurses’ Intent to Stay" (2026). International Nursing Research Congress (INRC). 196.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/inrc/2026/presentations_2026/196
Conference Name
37th International Nursing Research Congress
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Conference Year
2026
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record. All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository. All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2026-08-23
Effect of Personal, Organizational, and Work Attributes on Long-Term Care Nurses’ Intent to Stay
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A stable workforce is key to creating and maintaining a positive work environment, enhancing productivity, reducing adverse events, and lowering recruitment and orientation costs (De Vries et al., 2023). Stability in staffing of long-term care (LTC) facilities is particularly important given the vulnerability of the residents and increasing complexity of their physical and psychosocial care needs (Calver et al., 2025; Virdo & Daly, 2025). However, before action can be taken to address high turnover rates among LTC staff (Gandhi et al., 2021), factors influencing such decisions need to be understood.
PURPOSE: To examine extent that LTC nurses’ intent to stay can be explained by personal characteristics as well as their perceptions of work engagement, the organizational context, and overall job satisfaction.
METHOD: Cross-sectional data were collected by the Atlantic Research Collaboration on Long-Term Care (ARC-LTC) to examine and address factors affecting quality of work-life for LTC staff and ultimately resident outcomes. Methods used for participant recruitment, survey design, and data collection were based on approaches developed by the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) consortium at the University of Alberta (www.trecresearch.ca). Stratified random sampling was used to recruit 53 LTC facilities in Canada’s four Atlantic provinces (Keefe et al., 2025). An online survey was completed by 724 nurses (39% RNs). Regression and structural equation modeling techniques were employed.
FINDINGS: Nurses’ intent to stay was partially explained by three personal characteristics (age group, role RN/LPN, birthplace), level of work engagement, and three aspects of organizational context (culture, slack in staffing, and leadership). Entry of job satisfaction further improved the explanatory ability. The model explained 41% of the variability in nurses’ scores for intent to stay. Nurses who were older, employed as a RN, born outside of Canada and expressed higher levels of work engagement, more positive views about the culture, staffing, and leadership in their workplace, and higher job satisfaction tended to have a stronger intent to stay.
CONCLUSION: Quality of work-life for LTC nurses is affected not only by the nature of their work but also the context in which they work. Further work is needed to uncover differences in how RNs and LPNs perceive their work and whether these differences may reflect their educational preparation and role identity.
Description
Workforce stability in long-term care is important due to the vulnerability of residents and increasing complexity of their physical and psychosocial care needs. Data collected from 724 LTC nurses suggest those who are older, employed as a RN, born outside of Canada and have higher work engagement, more positive views about the culture, staffing, and leadership in their workplace, and higher job satisfaction tend to have stronger intent to stay. Implication for retention efforts are considered.