Abstract
[Objective] Mid-career, the age between 35 and 45 years, is considered a critical period in career development, and it is important to fully understand how nursing careers develop at this time. This study aims to understand this issue by applying the framework of Meleis’s transition theory, and focusing on the transition conditions of mid-career nurses working in hospitals.
[Methods] Based on the “transition conditions” of Meleis’s transition theory, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 mid-career female nurses, aged 35 to 45 years, working in hospitals as full-time employees, and qualitatively and inductively analyzed the data. From the interviews, we identified categories of transition conditions, classified them into Personal, Community, and Society conditions, and structured the transition conditions.
[Results] We identified the following eight categories of transition conditions of mid-career nurses:“confirmation of positive aspects and significance of working as a nurse,” “awareness of expectations and evaluation by the organization, superiors, and others,” “efforts taken to develop a nursing career,” “preparation to work in a preferable workplace,” “shifting or leaving workplaces expecting change,” “anxiety about unpredictable problems at the workplace and in family life,” “concerns about threats to physical and mental strength,” and “adjustments considering the life stage.” A structure was found in which multiple transition conditions−Personal, Community, and Gender−were involved in these categories.
[Conclusion] The findings suggest that the transition conditions of mid-career nurses both facilitate and inhibit advancement to the next transition stage, involving positive and negative aspects of career development.
