Introduction

What causes staffing shortages in the field of nursing? Staffing shortages can be the result of many variables—turnover, unmet demand for services due to a lack of RNs, overwork (nurses calling in sick), and so on. Buchan (2002) identified the problem of staffing shortages in nursing as having an underlying cause in the nature of the health system itself as well as a social one: “Nursing in many countries continues to be undervalued as women’s work, and nurses are given only limited access to resources to make them effective in their jobs and careers” (p. 751). This is especially true in countries like Saudi Arabia, where nursing is viewed as woman’s work but is not valued highly by society—though it is recognized as being highly needed (Alyami & Watson, 2014). To address the issue of staffing shortages, the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2012) has called for more nurses to achieve a higher level of education so that they can be better prepared to handle the demands of the real-world nursing environment. The idea is that the more educated a nurse is, the more prepared the nurse will be for the experiences that are routinely faced in the industry and the less likely turnover and absenteeism are to result. The question stands, however: Is there reason to believe based on the IOM’s proposal that the higher level of education a nurse attains, the more likely the nurse will be to commit to nursing for the long haul? In other words, can the problem of staffing shortages be solved by obliging all RNs to obtain a 4-year or 6+ year degree (Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctoral)?

Problem Statement

The problem that this study intends to address is the problem of staffing shortages in the field of nursing. Staffing shortages lead to obstacles in the delivery of quality care to patients (Baydoun, Dumit & Daouk-Oyry, 2016). This problem is not confined to any one region but is a global phenomenon (Buchan, 2002; AbuAlRub, El-Jardali, Jamal & Al-Rub, 2016; Zboril-Benson, 2016; Walker, 2017). While Buchan (2002) charges that the problem is institutional and social, the IOM (2012) asserts that if nurses would obtain a higher level of education, they would be more likely to handle the pressures and complex problems associated with nursing in today’s health care industry, where patients often present with a complex array of issues.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that higher levels of education obtained by nurses are predictive of staying power in the nursing field. It proposes to evaluate whether there is a significant predictive relationship between levels of education obtained by nurses and the amount of time they dedicate to working as a nurse. It will measure nurses’ level of education and compare it to how many days they call in sick or how many days they have taken in time off for personal reasons, and how many months and years they have worked in the field without interruptions of more than a routine or schedule vacation.

Research Question

The research question this study specifically intends to address is: Does obtaining a higher-level of education by nurses predict staying power in the field of nursing? The sub-question is: Is more education the solution to staffing shortages in nursing?

Review of Literature

According to the study by Baydoun et al. (2016), staffing shortages disrupt health care service and make it harder for providers to offer the kind of quality care to patients that patients expect and require. The more frequently that nurses call in sick or do not show up for work, the more costly it is, ultimately, for the organization that employs them. Not only does the organization have to find a way to cover the shift, sometimes by paying other nurses overtime to stay and work more hours, it risks overworking the short-handed staff already there, which can lead to more turnover and the need to hire and train more nurses. Baydoun et al. (2016) conducted a qualitative descriptive study, collecting information from a governmental academic hospital in Lebanon and interviewing 20 nurse managers at the facility. Content analysis approach was used to analyze the data, which showed that staff shortages were routinely caused by one of three factors or some combination of the three: 1) work-related issues, 2) individual issues, and 3) organizational... These issues did not correlate in any explicit way with the level of education that the nurse had received, which indicates that there may be more to the problem of staffing shortages than education alone can solve.
The study by Zboril-Benson (2016) also focuses on absenteeism and why it is occurring in the nursing industry. The researcher notes that, like Baydoun et al. (2016), absenteeism is a costly factor for organizations and one that has to be reduced substantially in order for facilities to maintain high standards of care for patients. The problem is that organizations are unable to tend to the issue for a lack of understanding why it occurs in the first place. Zboril-Benson (2016) notes that there is “relatively little cumulative knowledge regarding its determinants” and that her approach was designed to establish a better understanding of why staffing shortages occurred (p. 89). To that end Zbori-Benson (2016) conducted a quantitative, non-experimental study that examined why 2000 front-line nurses in Canada called in to work or did not show. What the researcher found was that an astonishing 450 respondents admitted to seriously considering quitting the nursing field because of overwork and stress. Moreover, the researcher found that the less job satisfaction there was among nurses, the more likely absenteeism was to occur. In other words, negative workplace environments created a feedback loop in which staffing shortages occurred, which fueled the worsening of the workplace environment by creating more stress for the nurses and compelling more of them to want to quit. The researcher did not examine the correlation of education levels with commitment to the nursing profession within the context of staffing shortages but rather focused on social complaints connected to the problem.

The study by AbuAlRub et al. (2016) looked at the connections between workplace environment, job satisfaction among nurses, and the nurses’ intention to stay in the profession. It also examined the predictive power of the nurses’ intention to stay in the profession within the context of staffing shortages. The researchers used a descriptive correlational method to obtain data from 330 nurses working in Jordanian hospitals. The study’s findings showed that there was a significant link between job satisfaction and the workplace environment. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the predictive power of the variables housing, job satisfaction and workplace—each having predictive abilities. The researchers thus concluded that in order to stop staffing shortages, health care organizations must set about providing a better workplace culture and environment where nurses want to work, feel good about working there, and look forward to their job because it gives them satisfaction in life. Without these qualities and characteristics in place, the health care facility is likely to continue to experience staffing shortages that will never be adequately addressed. The study made no indication of education levels as a factor or variable in the outcome of nurses’ intention to stay in the profession or to continue on at the organization.

The study by Walker (2017) identified a number of factors related to the problem of staffing in nursing. Walker (2017) viewed an aging population and an aging workforce as factors in the problem. She also viewed a lack of specialty or higher-level education as a factor. Mobility within the nursing industry and a shortage of nurse educators were also cited as factors. Walker’s (2017) study thus identified two school-related factors that may impact the problem of staffing in nursing organizations: a lack of higher education and a lack of teachers to provide instruction. In other words, the shortage is not one that is restricted specifically to the nursing industry: it also touches and is touched by the lack of nurse educators in the educational industry. The problem that Walker (2017) sees in her qualitative assessment of the issue is that there is too little connection between the workplace environment where professionals live and the educational environment where the researchers and academics live. The real-world experience of the nursing field has to be better integrated into the educational field so that nurses can be better prepared for the future—this is the main conclusion of Walker’s (2017) study.

Aboshaiqah (2016) examines the problem of nursing shortages in Saudi Arabia…