Recruitment barriers in rural community hospitals: A comparison of nursingand nonnursing factors

Despite encouraging signs suggesting that many rural hospitals are experien cing less severe staff shortages, the challenge of successfully recruiting nurses to rural practice settings continues to be a major obstacle. Based o n a 1993 survey of 164 directors of nursing (DONs) practicing in rural comm unity hospitals, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to cluster 21 D ON-rated recruitment barriers into factors associated with nursing delivery , local community, and professional interaction. DONs, most notably those p racticing in the smallest rural facilities (less than or equal to 25 beds), reported community-related barriers such as spouse's employment as the mos t severe obstacles to successful registered nurse (RN) recruitment. However , upon examination conducted by using multiple regression analyses, only th ose factors related to nursing delivery and professional interaction were f ound to be statistically significant predictors of existing staff RN full-t ime equivalency vacancy rates. Given that barriers related to individual nu rsing staffs are likely to be far more amenable to change than those associ ated with rural environments, these findings offer encouragement to nursing administrators who are faced with the difficulties of attracting RNs to ru ral practice settings. Copyright (C) 1998 by W.B. Saunders Company.