Nurses in developing world work under unsatisfactory conditions that threaten their physical, mental and social wellbeing. With the gross shortage of nurses and the invitation of retired nurses to continue working, there is a need to understand the response of the nurses and indications for further studies especially in Africa and developing world.
Really you have asked an important question. I am not aware of any studies in Africa, but I believe they are all areas of research that could impact nursing literature and the profession. There have been many studies on migration and effects in developing countries, specifically Africa, and many nurses as you rightly mentioned on retirement still continue working. The question is, What is the staffing level in health institutions? Who does the job of nurses? Are the retired nurses as productive? What should be the way forward? These and other questions or thoughts could added to yours make a case for an in depth study that could yield some evidence for decisions, ideas and contributory information to the nurses' roles in retirement.
Chika, thanks for your response. You understood the purpose of the question. I have read a lot on the issue from developed countries and wanted to 'provoke' researchers in the developing world to come up with evidence that can inform decisions about us. Studies in developed countries relied so much on databases that we lack and we need to start building at various levels for future use. The questions raised in your response are quite relevant and should also be examined at various levels. Prof, how do we get started?
There are snippets here and there about the ageing nursing workforce in Africa when each country presents data on the active nurses in the countries, mostly through statistics from the Nursing and Midwifery Councils or regulatory bodies. However, specific studies addressing this issue is not common. I have listened to a few presentations from the SANC in South Africa, the Nursing Council in Kenya, and a few other African countries (Zambia inclusive) where the grim picture of aging nursing population had been painted, usually in connection with nursing workforce shortage due to immigration. There was a lot of this during the period when discussions on the Human Resource for Health in the last 10 years or so. Africa still has no reliable data, and perhaps one of the tasks of the regulatory bodies, nursing organizations and academics in nursing will be to reestablish the true picture of the demographics of nurses in Africa. There are WHO documents that provide some information on these, which may need to be revised through related studies on a regular basis.
Thanks Prof for your valuable contribution. I will share this with some of my colleagues in the Nursing & Midwifery Council of Nigeria and find out what is happening at the HRH office of the Federal Ministry of Health after the recent HRH global forum in Brazil.
Bridget, I have traveled to Uganda with a small group of nurses for 8 years to work with the faculty of Makerere University and the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Union. With our Ugandan team members, we conducted a study of work-related quality of life that provided insight into conditions that affected the professional fulfillment that nurses did or did not experience.
A colleague and I developed a tool "Nurses International Relocation and Transition 2" and attempted to recruit sample of African-educated nurses working in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We were not successful in obtaining an adequate sample. However, one of my former PhD students, Dr. Kristina Ibatiyo, used the tool for her dissertation and recruited a sample of nurses who had immigrated to the United States.
Often in new areas of study, ,an appropriate first step is to conduct a qualitative study to explore the topic as the basis for a program of research. Think about what might be gained by conducting interviews or focus groups with older nurses and including some that have retired and some that have not. Hearing their perspectives might clearly identify a knowledge gap that could be addressed by conducting a quantitative study with a larger sample.
Dear Jennifer, thanks for your wonderful contribution and indeed it is a good way to go.
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