AN ANALYSIS OF THE ACTIVE-DUTY NURSE WORKFORCE AND ATTRITION TRENDS

Abstract

For the Military Health System (MHS) to maintain a staffed, trained, and ready active-duty Nurse Corps, it is key to understand active-duty nurse trends and attrition factors. This thesis aims to provide a summary on the composition, demographics, and service-related factors of military nurses who attrite during defined periods. The active-duty nurse population was grouped by Registered Nurses and Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), with a subgroup of APRNs by specialty. Using data from January 2016 to March 2023, four Kaplan-Meier Survival estimates and five Linear Probability Models were completed. Findings show 84% of nurse corps officers remain in service at seven years. If a nurse joins the Navy or Air Force, a nurse has a 65% probability of staying in to 20 years. If a nurse joins the Army, a nurse has a 60% chance of staying in to 20 years. Navy APRNs have an 82% probability of staying to 20 years, followed by Army APRNs at 76%, and Air Force APRNs at 65%. Over 45% of active-duty nurses are 40 years of age and over. More than 22% of active-duty nurses are retirement eligible. The findings in this thesis are important for policy makers as geographic nurse supply and demand issues coupled with age-related demographic shifts have the potential to affect the recruitment and retention of active-duty nurses. This thesis analyzed only a select group of nurse specialties. The DoD would benefit from further studies on all 20 nurse specialty types.