Motivations of nurses who re-entered during the COVID-19 pandemic to either stay or leave nursing practice: a follow-up interview study.

Background
During the COVID-19 pandemic, former nurses were encouraged to return to the nursing profession to ease pressure on the healthcare system. Retaining re-entering nurses in the long term would offer an opportunity to mitigate the persistent nursing shortages.

Objective
To provide insights into the motivations of nurses in the Netherlands who re-entered nursing during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to either remain in or leave nursing again.

Design
A qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews.

Setting
The study was conducted in the Netherlands at various healthcare settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centres, home care, COVID-19 units, and public health vaccination sites.

Participants
Nurses who had re-entered nursing during the COVID-19 pandemic participated in this follow-up study.

Methods
Thirteen individual semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2025. Verbatim interview transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results
The re-entering nurses were categorised into two groups: three 'stayers', who were still working in nursing in 2025, and 10 'leavers', who had left nursing again. For stayers, the following main themes emerged from the analysis: a meaningful job, professional development opportunities combined with favourable working conditions, and support from managers and employers. For leavers, the main themes identified were: lack of professional development opportunities, unfavourable working conditions, lack of support from employers and managers, limited professional autonomy and recognition, and the intensive trajectory for re-registration for registered nurses.

Conclusions
Most motivations of re-entering nurses to either remain in or leave nursing reflected broader challenges affecting nurse retention. Addressing these challenges may help to retain re-entering nurses.