Predictors of work engagement among rural and remote nurses who provide hospice, palliative, and end of life care: Results from a national study

Background The availability of palliative health care professionals is considered a global concern, especially within rural/remote practice settings. Nurses across all domains of practice are expected to advocate for high-quality hospice, palliative, and end of life (H/P/EOL) care. However, within many rural/remote geographical areas, formal palliative care services are non-existent, leaving generalist nurses to take on this complex responsibility. Methods Examining results from a Pan-Canadian cross-sectional survey of rural and remote nurses (N = 3,822), this paper explores a subset (n = 295) of nurses who provided hospice, palliative and/or end of life care as part of their practice. Analyses examined job demands and job resources, predictors of work engagement, and a summary of open-ended responses. Results The rural and remote nurses who worked in hospice, palliative, and/or end of life care had significantly higher satisfaction with practice demands related to their safety, lower practice resources related to staffing and time, and higher levels of work engagement compared to nurses in other areas. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that seven variables accounted for 40% of the variance in their work engagement, including: perceived mental health, job satisfaction, interprofessional collaboration, affective organizational commitment, continuance organizational commitment, normative organizational commitment, and lower job demands related to working conditions. Open-ended data revealed that rural nurses felt privileged to provide H/P/EOL care, however, faced barriers related to blurred personal/professional boundaries when dealing with death/dying and lack of access to palliative resources. Conclusions This is the first Canadian national profile of rural and remote nurses who provide hospice, palliative and end of life care and highlights key areas related to their professional quality of life (e.g., work engagement, organizational commitment, job resources/demands). The results of this analysis may inform practice and policy development for health human resource planning and recruitment/retention in hospice, palliative and/or end of life care across rural and remote settings.