Nurses’ experience of professional enjoyment of nursing: a qualitative descriptive study
The recruitment and retention of the registered nursing workforce is both a domestic and global challenge. There is limited research studying why nurses remain and what they enjoy about being a nurse yet a growth in international studies exploring why nurses leave the profession. Aim of the study: To explore nurses’ experience of professional enjoyment and to understand the factors that enhance or diminish professional enjoyment in nursing. Methods: This qualitative study explored professional enjoyment of nursing using semi-structured interviews with 25 registered nurses in England. The purposive sample of nurses were recruited via Twitter and included nurses with a range of tenure in the profession, age, roles, employment settings and from all four fields of nursing. Six themes were developed from the data using reflexive thematic data analysis. Findings: This study found that the experience of professional enjoyment of nursing was strongly associated with ‘being a nurse’, ‘making a difference’, from feeling valued and that the professional voice of nursing is heard. Professional enjoyment can be enhanced or diminished by others by workplace culture, leadership, civility and recognition of contribution. The study identified the positive and negative impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on nurses’ professional enjoyment and discovered consequences of professional enjoyment on teams, nurse retention and patient experience. These findings have been presented as 4 statements of knowledge on professional enjoyment of nursing. Conclusion: The study offers conceptual clarity for the phenomenon of professional enjoyment and concomitant concepts of joy, happiness, passion, job satisfaction and work engagement. The study includes recommendations for health and care organisations, executive nurse leaders and future research.
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