The emotional impact of nursing student attrition rates

Nursing student attrition continues to attract political, organizational and social interest for a number of reasons including: persistent nursing shortages, the age profile of the current nursing population and the economic cost of attrition. While attrition in nursing students is not a new phenomenon, it is surprising that this issue has attracted such little research attention obtained from students who persist, rather than the experiences of students who have withdrawn from pre-registration nursing courses. The emotional impact on students who decide to voluntarily leave has attracted limited theoretical analysis, so a single case study design was selected to help explain the causes of voluntary attrition in nursing students within a School of Nursing and Midwifery. A semi-structured interview method was used to collect data from study participants. The study population was obtained through purposeful sampling and consisted of 15 students who had previously voluntarily withdrawn from pre-registration nursing programmes. The articles describes the range of emotions which many students experienced and the process of gradual disengagement which may precede student decisions to formally withdraw.