UHC/AACN Nurse Residency Program Retention and Racial Disparities

Hospitals incur significant cost because of high turnover of nurses in first-year employment. The UHC/AACN Nursing Residency Program (NRP) was developed to help address this issue and has increased retention to impressive rates in participating institutions. However, racial disparities within the program and possible factors driving the higher retention rates haven’t been studied. The program tenets aim to reduce stress and increase satisfaction in first-year employment; therefore, this study investigated the association between ethnicity and stress/satisfaction factors with program retention. The participants were subdivided into two cohorts: ethnic minorities and non-Hispanic whites and analyzed using a two-proportion z-test. Ethnicity and stress/satisfaction data collected through the NRP’s end of program survey were then analyzed using logistic regression. The difference in retention between minorities (94.2%) and non-Hispanic white cohorts (96.1%) was highly statistically significant (p< 0.001). In terms of factors, the odds of retention were found to increase by 52.19% and 36.77% when going from not satisfied to being satisfied with job responsibilities (p< 0.001) and salary (p< 0.001), respectively. For stress in personal life, the odds of retention decrease by 21.89% when going from having no stress to having stress (p= 0.003). Finally, the odds of retention increased by 40.32% (p< 0.001) when going from the minority group to the non-Hispanic white group. These study results suggest racial disparities are present in NRP retention and that the tenets of the NRP focusing on reducing stress and increasing satisfaction may be a promising tactic to tackle retention issues in the nursing profession.