2019 Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 1_27-1_34
We conducted a questionnaire survey with nurses aged 40 to under 60 working at medical and welfare facilities to clarify the relationship between past working experience and the wish to pursue the second stage of their career （working again as a nurse after reaching compulsory retirement age）. The questionnaire covered problems to surmount and difficulties encountered in later stages, and whether they wanted to continue to develop their career after moving to a new stage of their career before retirement age.
Outpatient department staff accounted for the highest proportion among the 1,194 respondents who wished to pursue the second stage of their career. They were unsure if they were physically up to the challenge and felt that learning new duties would be rather a burden. As for the relationship between past working experience and the desire to pursue their career, the desire to work as outpatient department staff, chronic phase ward staff, elderly facility staff, visiting nursing station staff, nursing administrators and nursing educators showed a strong association with having the same work experience. Ideally, nurses should be able to choose how and where to work in anticipation of pursuing the second stage of their career before reaching retirement age.
