Nursing Shortage: Causes, Mentorship, and Solutions

Introduction

The foundation of a health care system is comprised of different medical and healthcare professions, each playing an important and significant role in maintaining satisfactory health care service for people. To maintain excellent health care service, the system must meet and satisfy the law of supply and demand with respect to health care professionals — one aspect in which the nursing field has been experiencing a shortage in supply for some years now.

Nurses are essential components of health care service. Without them and the roles they perform, the task of providing care for people's health would be incomplete. Aside from doctors, nurses are among the key figures in health institutions. However, as vital as doctors and patients consider nurses' roles to be, interest in entering this profession appears to be declining. This is perhaps due to students' shifting interests toward new professions, specifically technology-related ones. As a result, the rate of nursing shortage increases year after year.

Countries worldwide are trying to solve the nursing shortage problem to prevent the unwanted consequences it poses for people's health. Through diverse health programs, nursing plans, and incentives, governments and health care institutions try to attract students, individuals interested in the field, and nursing graduates who have moved to other professions, to pursue a career in nursing. To them, the central problem is essentially this: how can the different aspects of a nursing career be improved to make it a more interesting and appealing job?

This study focuses on the reasons why the number of nursing candidates is dropping and what can be done to improve the attractiveness of the nursing profession to a wider pool of candidates. More specifically, it examines how a defined mentoring relationship — as a method of improving nursing's appeal — can positively affect the qualitative aspects of the profession.

The nursing shortage is a current issue that covers a wide area of discussion. It presents a number of subject matters to which many related issues are linked, and a complete examination of the problem would require extensive analysis and research. To allow a clear and comprehensible presentation of the nursing shortage problem, this study focuses its discussion on two areas:

Scope and Delimitation

First, the reasons behind the nursing shortage. Second, the mentoring relationship as a method of upgrading the nursing profession and how it can positively affect the goal of making nursing an appealing and attractive career.

This study considers these issues fundamental yet essential concerns that produce major effects on nursing shortage. Because they are critical parts of the problem, they require serious attention and detailed analysis. Solutions, however, are not covered within this study. This study will specifically focus on researching and analyzing the two areas mentioned, with the hope that the discussion presented will be useful for future studies on the problem of nursing shortage. To provide a basis and reference for these areas of concern, this paper includes a review of several relevant literatures on the subject.

Nursing shortage is a global problem that grows continuously year after year. According to the Bureau of Health Professions (BHP), together with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2002), the demand for nurses — if not resolved — could reach a growth of 29 percent by 2020. Given this analysis and the apparent trend of increasing worldwide demand for nurses, understanding the causes behind this problem is essential.

Defining the Nursing Shortage

The U.S. General Accounting Office (2001), in its examination of the nursing shortage, identified several factors that contribute to the shrinking number of nurses:

Reduced entry of younger people into the profession; job dissatisfaction; declining social value placed on nursing as a career; and changes in career opportunities. Additional factors — such as a lack of educational facilities to accommodate more nursing students, a shortage of faculty to teach nursing courses, and limited resources — are also critical causes of the inability to meet the increasing demand for nurses.

The declining numbers of nurses worldwide have prompted major efforts from governments and health institutions to address the continuing problem. One of these efforts, and a central concern of this study, is the implementation of mentorship programs to support future nurses and increase the supply of nursing professionals. Mentorship programs are collaborative efforts between schools and health institutions that help improve the nursing career and the quality of care the profession provides.

The main research questions on the subject of nursing shortage from which this study is based are:

Research Questions

First, what factors influence the nursing shortage? Second, how do mentorship programs help in the improvement of nursing as a profession?

To adequately examine and understand the factors behind the shortage of nurses, and to learn the positive effects that mentorship programs can provide in the recruitment and retention of nurses, this study considers the following sub-questions as helpful guides:

Is the shortage caused by a decline in nursing enrollments? If so, what reasons led students to decide not to pursue a nursing career? Is there a nursing shortage because nurses are leaving the profession? If so, what are the reasons? Is the shortage caused by a decline in the number of new nurses entering the field, or is it simply because there is increasing demand driven by a growing patient population? How does society perceive nursing as a profession? What is a mentorship program, and what processes are involved? What evidence from implemented mentorship programs demonstrates that the method is effective in improving the nursing profession?