What makes a day at work extraordinary
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What makes a day at work extraordinary

Francine Leach Professional development co-ordinator, Department of nursing, Bristol Hospital, Bristol, Connecticut, US
Kerry Yeager Professional development co-ordinator, Department of nursing, Bristol Hospital, Bristol, Connecticut, US

To gain insight into nurses’ expectations and motivation, Francine Leach and Kerry Yeager interviewed staff to find out what makes their job stand out and how daily experiences affect their views about what they do

To prevent high rates of nurse burnout and staff turnover, hospitals must create environments that fulfil nurses’ expectations and foster positive emotional responses to their job. To gain an understanding of what triggers positive emotional responses, a group of nurses were asked to recall an ‘extraordinary day’. Their descriptions were analysed to identify these triggers and to determine whether their perceptions of what makes an extraordinary day change over time. This article discusses the results of the study and suggests that enabling nurses to describe meaningful experiences is a step toward learning what it is they value.

Nursing Management. 20, 1, 16-22. doi: 10.7748/nm2013.04.20.1.16.e1052

Correspondence

fleach@bristolhospital.org

Peer review

This article has been subject to double blind peer review

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 30 January 2013

Accepted: 27 February 2013

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