A Comprehensive Understanding of Nurses Remaining in the Profession – Development of a Model

The chapter expands our understanding of why nurses remain in their profession by presenting a model that consists of larger and smaller ellipses, along with a brief description of how the model is developed. Grounded in a comprehensive understanding, stating what is of significance for remaining in the profession, the model re-contextualizes that understanding into a larger picture. This involves clarifying constituent elements or key concepts that place the remaining into an appropriate theoretical context, verbalizing the key concepts that structure the model, and elaborating on the constituent elements and propositions that specify the linkages between them. Thus, as a comprehensive model, the model illustrates that remaining linked to nurses’ horizons of identity and self-understanding, and constituted by strong evaluations, can occur through identification and taking standpoints, which in turn, involves the potential for nurses to realize themselves. The added benefit of the model is discussed, as well as some limitations of the model.