Satisfaction level and desire to change the professional situation in nurses of integrated continuous care units

This study aims to analyze nurses' satisfaction in the specific context of four Integrated Continuing Care Units of the Portuguese Red Cross, and to know how the level of satisfaction is related to their intention for professional change. It is a descriptive and correlational quantitative study. The sample consisted of 41 nurses from four Integrated Continuous Care Units. It was applied an instrument that integrated questions about job satisfaction (using the Job Satisfaction Scale described by Lima, Vala and Monteiro, 1994) and questions about the intention of professional change (using the Turnover Intention Scale, adapted from Bothma and Roodt, 2013). The results showed that, in the sample studied, the average level of satisfaction with the profession is M = 3.41 (SD = 0.55) on a scale ranging from 1, corresponding to the lowest level of satisfaction, to 5, corresponding to the highest level. The main dissatisfaction factors identified were career progression and remuneration. As for turnover intent, an average score of M=2.79 (sd = 0.65) was recorded, below the midpoint of the five-point scale. The analysis of the results revealed the existence of statistically significant correlations between the intention to turnover and different dimensions of job satisfaction, being particularly expressive in situations where there is dissatisfaction with the nature of the work performed (rs=0.655; p<0.05).