ReviewInternational nursing review2026
Building, Recruiting and Retaining the Hospital Nursing Workforce: An International Policy-Oriented Narrative Review of Workforce Pipeline Interventions (2016-2026).
Review in International nursing review, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAcute care nursing shortages reflect constraints in education, recruitment and retention. Transparent synthesis is needed to distinguish tested interventions from plausible workforce strategies.
aimTo synthesise 2016-2026 evidence on building, recruiting and retaining the hospital nursing workforce and interpret it for nursing and health policy.
methodsMEDLINE/PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science were searched on 21 February 2026. Both authors independently screened records and assessed full texts. FMI charted characteristics, and GS verified entries against reports. The prespecified build-recruit-retain structure was combined with inductive thematic development. The 24 sources comprised 11 reviews (seven systematic, two scoping, one umbrella and one integrative), five primary studies/evaluations, seven policy/standards documents and one commentary. Direct intervention evidence was separated from contextual and policy evidence; no formal risk-of-bias assessment was undertaken.
findingsTransition-to-practice and nurse-residency programmes had the most consistent direct support for early-career retention, although heterogeneity limited certainty. Work-environment, staffing, leadership and safety evidence was usually observational or based on proximal outcomes. Recruitment redesign, return-to-practice and digital models had limited or emerging evidence on observed workforce outcomes. Studies were concentrated in the United States and Europe. DISCUSSION: Well-specified transition programmes merit priority; other linked strategies require evaluation with common attrition, turnover and retention definitions and claims calibrated to evidence strength.
conclusionThe author-developed pipeline is useful for organising evidence, but several pathways remain unvalidated and require prospective evaluation in more diverse health systems. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY: Nurse leaders can prioritise structured transition support and test whether staffing, governance, leadership and safety reforms improve observed retention. Policymakers should consider education capacity, ethical recruitment and standardised metrics while distinguishing intervention-supported actions from policy-based or framework-generated proposals.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.