Nursing recruitment and turnover is a significant issue for the health care system, as
high turnover rates can contribute significantly to negative outcomes in terms of cost
and quality of care. Both critical care and regional nursing have been highlighted as
areas of specific concern in the literature (Department of Human Services, 2001),
but no studies have focussed on the retention of regional, critical care nurses.
This research is an exploratory, descriptive study to. investigate the outcomes of
tertiary critical care nursing courses based in Victorian regional hospitals in terms of
employment and retention of graduates and the factors which influence this.