Job preferences of operating room nurses: A discrete choice experiment

The global nursing shortage is particularly acute in operating rooms, where staffing deficits can compromise surgical efficiency and patient safety. Although previous studies have identified factors associated with nurse retention, quantitative evidence on how operating room nurses value and trade off different job attributes remains limited.

To quantify the job preferences of operating room nurses and examine the relative importance of different job attributes.

A cross-sectional study utilising a discrete choice experiment.

Four public tertiary hospitals in Sichuan Province, China.

385 operating room nurses.

Data were collected through an anonymous online survey in which participants completed a series of discrete choice tasks comparing hypothetical jobs defined by six attributes: income, work climate, career development, leadership, working hours, and National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (the proportion of assigned surgeries with a risk index score of 2 or 3). Preferences were estimated using a mixed logit model. Relative importance scores were calculated to quantify the contribution of each job attribute to overall utility, and subgroup analyses were conducted to examine preference heterogeneity.

A total of 385 operating room nurses were included in the analysis. Among the attribute levels evaluated in this discrete choice experiment, work climate had the highest relative importance (38.16%), followed by working hours (21.63%), monthly income (14.25%), career development (12.89%), leadership (9.20%), and National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (3.87%). Improving the work climate from a negative to a positive level was associated with the largest relative utility gain within the discrete choice experiment design. Subgroup analyses showed no statistically significant preference differences according to sex, age, marital status, professional title, years of nursing experience, and weekly working hours (all interaction P-values >0.05).

In this discrete choice experiment, work climate had the highest relative importance across the evaluated attribute levels among the participating operating room nurses, followed by working hours and income. Improving work climate, supporting work-life balance, and providing appropriate financial incentives may be considered when developing strategies to recruit and retain these nurses, although caution is warranted given the limited recruitment setting.

Not registered.

For operating room nurses, a positive work climate is the top job priority, followed by working hours and income.