Job Dissatisfaction Among Elderly Care Nurses Working in Hospital Inpatient Settings: A Qualitative Study

A knowledge gap exists regarding how physical, psychosocial, and organizational stressors interact dynamically over time to drive nurse dissatisfaction. This qualitative study explores the lived experiences of hospital inpatient elderly care nurses navigating their institutional environment. The aim was to uncover the specific operational dynamics of job dissatisfaction and provide an empirical model of these cyclic, self-reinforcing patterns.

A qualitative research design was applied for the study. The purposive sample consisted of 21 nurses; the sample size was determined by data saturation. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and analyzed using latent qualitative content analysis.

A cyclic model was developed to delineate four components of nurse dissatisfaction in hospital inpatient elderly care, where an unfavorable practice environment shapes work and role overload, which subsequently influences physical and psychosocial exhaustion. Such exhaustion leads to professional distress when clinical realities conflict with professional expectations, ultimately looping back into the system to compound the operational cycle.

The developed interpretive model provides experience-based insights for nursing leadership to target the cyclic feedback mechanism through supportive structures and active modifications to the daily elderly care nursing environment. These qualitative findings show that the retention of elderly care nurses involves comprehensive rather than isolated interventions.