Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the factors contributing to depression and to the intention among nurses to resign or transfer to another position. A mail-based survey was conducted in 536 nurses providing care to patients with intractable neurological diseases （response rate, 66.2%;valid response rate, 62.3%）. The path coefficients were statistically significant at less than 5%. Among the nurses who responded to the survey 62.3% and 62.9% had depression and expressed their intention to resign, respectively. A covariance structure analysis revealed that the factors contributing to depression were “conflict with superiors” and “imbalance between care and outcome” among nurses with less than 3 years’ experience in providing nursing care to patients with intractable neurological diseases, and “conflict with colleagues” among nurses with 3 years or longer experience in providing nursing care to patients with intractable neurological diseases. In both groups, “difficulty of involvement” and workplace support were found to contribute to depression through their impact on self-efficacy. In addition, in both groups, depression was found to contribute to the intention to resign, and “quantitative workload” contributed to the intention to resign or transfer to another position. For nurses with 3 years or longer experience in providing nursing care to patients with intractable neurological diseases, “verbal abuse by patients” was also found to contribute to the intention to resign. These results suggest the necessity of measures, such as measures to improve the workplace human relations, not only for all nurses, but also for groups of nurses defined by years of experience in providing nursing care for patients with intractable diseases.
