What drives advanced practice nurses to stay in rural America? Insights from the 2022 National Survey of Registered Nurses.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Recruiting and retaining a robust rural health care workforce is critical to advancing health outcomes in rural communities. Although increasing the rural provider workforce has been a policy focus for decades, rural access continues to worsen. Using a strengths-based approach, we identify factors that influence the decisions of advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) to leave or stay in their jobs.

Methods

Secondary analysis of data from the 2022 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. We describe rates of turnover, retention, intention to leave, and reasons for leaving and staying by job rurality. We compare reasons by rurality using Pearson chi-squared tests with the Rao-Scott correction, applying survey weights to all analyses.

Findings

Our sample

SUBMITTER: Patel E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12569397 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature