Effects of an advanced nursing assistant education program on job satisfaction, turnover rate, assistant education...

Certified nursing assistants (CNAs) have become an integral part of the health care system, spend the most amount of time with residents, and yet have the least amount of training. Recent reports demonstrate that CNAs believe their salary is not commensurate with their workload, and turnover rates in this field have indicated low job satisfaction. In light of these issues, we developed an advanced training program for CNAs in our institution to determine whether investing in our employees would increase job satisfaction and therefore impact turnover rates and clinical outcomes. Although overall job satisfaction improved slightly during the study period, satisfaction with training offered was the only area significantly affected by the intervention; however, significant decreases in turnover rates were observed between the pre- and postintervention periods. Clinical indicators were slightly improved, and the number of resident urinary tract infections decreased significantly. Offering an advanced training program for CNAs may be an effective way to improve morale, turnover rates, and clinical outcomes.