Engagement of nurses in their profession. Qualitative study on engagement.

OBJECTIVE: To identify common issues of nurses with high engagement to enable us to develop the construct as it applies to nursing in more depth.

METHOD: Based on the constructivist paradigm and with a phenomenological approach, a qualitative content analysis was conducted using an inductive approach. Participants were nurses working in direct care in different healthcare areas. The sample size was determined by data saturation and 15 participants were interviewed.

RESULTS: The units of meaning were grouped into 11 subcategories, and then into 7 categories termed vigour, dedication, reward, autonomy, social support, conciliation and attributes of nurses. Then these categories were grouped into 3 major themes: job characteristics, characteristics of organizations, and individual characteristics.

CONCLUSIONS: Having high engagement does not mean ignoring the negative aspects of work and organizations. Nurses who maintain high engagement are also affected by the negative aspects, however the assessment of positive aspects such as enjoying the work, the meaning of being a nurse, reward and autonomy enable the process of depletion of engagement to be overcome. In view of the findings, we propose reconceptualising the construct, taking the features of nursing into account.