Nurses’ engagement at work is an important topic of concern in organizational management because it can help in preventing turnover and providing quality care. Among the various engagement concepts, work engagement is a widely known concept. In this study, we conducted a literature review on “engagement at work” in general, including work engagement, to provide an overview of the research trends of the concept and to organize the definition and scope of each engagement concept. The results from the literature review revealed that “engagement at work” could be classified into three categories: (1) personal engagement, which focuses on the relationship between work roles and the self; (2) employee engagement, which serves as a human resource management tool for improving organizational performance; and (3) work engagement, which captures a positive psychological state of the self toward work itself. Based on these categorizations, we present the issues in nurses’ engagement at work and future research directions for engagement research among nursing professionals.

Objective: The object of this study was to gain insight on the future consideration of preventive public health measures for COVID-19 from online survey of a group of people whose cooperation could be gained.

Methods: The online survey was conducted for 1,600 adults living in Tokyo Metropolitan Area, and 400 adults living in five prefectures with least number of new test positive cases of COVID-19, excluding those whose workplace are related to medical and welfare sector. The survey was conducted on August 7, 2020 and the data was collected and analyzed. Multivariate analysis was done to find factors that effect the cooperation to public health measures such as providing personal information and placing limitations on everyday life and behavior.

Results: The percentage of persons that show some kind of intention to cooperate by providing information and following limitations in everyday life and behavior was over 90%. Within them there were around 30% who think that those who do not cooperate should be penalized (based on a law for example). People who think that information about the infections “should be actively disclosed”, people who were male, older age, who did not have an acquaintance that was infected tended to choose to fully cooperate. Many of the reasons for cooperating were “useful in preventing the spread of infection”, and “wanting to protect my family and myself for infections”.

Conclusion: From the results of the survey, the level of awareness for the cooperating to COVID-19 prevention measures was high, while there were people who think that those who do not cooperate should be penalized (based on a law for example.) Promoting preventive measures to male, relatively young adults, who do not have infected acquaintances, could be an effective direction for considering future measures and disclosing information could be one of the key factors for gaining cooperation.

This study aimedto evaluate the actual status of recruitment and job application of nurses as well as their balance, number of desired human resources, and recruitment activities in hospitals across Japan based on hospital size.

An anonymous self-administered questionnaire survey of professionals from 3,060 hospitals that were selected by stratified random sampling from among hospitals across Japan was conducted from January to February 2019. The questionnaire included questions about institutional attributes, vacancies/job application status of nurses, and recruitment activities, among others.

As a result, we received responses from professionals from 992 hospitals who consented to participate in the study. The data on the vacancies/applicants balance revealed that the number of applicants was less than the number of vacancies in many hospitals with 100–199 beds. Regarding special nurses, large number of senior nurses, new employees aged ≥60 years, and certified nurses/nursing specialists were sought by hospitals with ≤99 beds, 100–199 beds, and ≥200 beds, respectively. A small number of hospitals with ≤99 beds conducted recruitment activities. The results suggest the need for recruitment support particularly for small hospitals and an effective matching system to correct the skewed distribution of nurses among individual hospitals and different size groups.

Purpose: This research aimed to classify inpatients using survey items to determine the patient acuity levels in long-term care wards and to visualize their clinical status, and medical care for them.

Methods: Using convenience sampling, we conducted a chart-review-based survey of 364 patients admitted to long-term care wards at five facilities. Hierarchical cluster analysis using items was conducted to determine the inpatient acuity levels in long-term care wards and to compare the patient clinical characteristics across the clusters.

Results: We identified five clusters as follows: cluster 1, receiving intravenous nutrition; cluster 2, receiving respiratory care with mechanical ventilation; cluster 3, receiving respiratory care with tracheotomy; cluster 4, receiving various medical treatments and care; and cluster 5, mixed conditions. There were inter-cluster differences in the primary diagnosis, clinical status, medical treatment and procedure, age, patient location before admission, discharge pathway, and activities of daily living levels.

Conclusions: The items selected to determine patient acuity levels in long-term care wards were useful to visualize the characteristics of patients admitted to long-term care wards in Japan. However, this study was limited by the convenience sampling design. Future studies should establish measures for the comprehensive assessment of patient clinical status/care needs and develop a care recommendation system based on the assessment.