Nurse Aide Retention in Nursing Homes

The association of nurse aide retention with three quality indicators is examined. Retention is defined as the proportion of staff continuously employed in the same facility for a defined period of time.

Data used in this investigation came from survey responses from 3,550 nursing facilities, Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reporting data, and the Area Resource File. Staffing characteristics, quality indicators, facility, and market information from these data sources were all measured in 2016. Nurse aide retention was measured at 1, 2, and 3 years of employment. The quality indicators examined were a count of all deficiency citations, quality of care deficiency citations, and J, K, L deficiency citations. Negative binomial regression analyses were used to study the associations between the three different retention measures and these three quality indicators.

The 1-, 2-, and 3-year nurse aide retention measures were 53.2%, 41.4%, and 36.1%, respectively. The regression analyses show low levels of retention to be generally associated with poor performance on the three deficiency citation quality indicators examined.

The research presented starts to provide information on nurse aide retention as an important workforce challenge and its potential impact on quality. Retention may be an additional staffing characteristic of nursing facilities with substantial policy and practice relevance.