Exploring Retention Among Army Nurses: A Qualitative Study

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the turnover rate among U.S. nurses has remained elevated, and now stands at 16.4%, costing the average hospital organization more than $3 million annually. The U.S. military faces similar challenges in its nursing workforce, with rising resignations and increasing job demands resulting in a shortage of more than 1,300 active-duty nurses. Without sufficient military nurses, service members, their families, and our national defense may be negatively impacted. We therefore felt it was important to examine how military nurses' experiences influence retention.

This interpretive, descriptive, qualitative study aimed to explore the unique experiences of active-duty U.S. Army nurses to determine the concepts that influence retention in the military.

Twenty-four active-duty Army nurses with varying levels of nursing experience were recruited via social media. Semistructured interviews were conducted via Zoom. A six-phase cyclic process of reflexive thematic analysis was used to generate the findings.

The concepts that influence the retention of active-duty Army nurses are multifactorial. The main themes identified were (1) "It's the people," consisting of leaders, mentors, the Army nurse community, and military care recipients, and (2) "I'm not only a nurse," capturing the dual professional roles of nurses, who are also military officers, while also considering their nonprofessional roles as individuals and family members.

Our findings suggest that positive interpersonal relationships and the ability to balance multiple professional and nonprofessional roles contribute to retention among active-duty Army nurses. Future retention efforts should include fostering relationship-based leadership styles, enhancing mentorship opportunities, uniting the military nursing community, and instituting a clinical career track so nurses can remain focused on their patient population and the nursing profession.