Pandemic Lessons for Future Nursing Shortage: A Prospective Cohort Study of Nurses’ Work Engagement before and during 16 Months of COVID-19

Table 2

Participants’ characteristics.

	Pre-COVID March-20	+4 months July-20	+8 months November-20	+16 months July-21	value
Employed nurses that were invited (n)	286	1052	1065	1040
Number of nurses employed	1009	1052	1065	1040
Total surveys received (n)	170	691	454	382
Response rate (%)	59.4%	65.7%	42.6%	36.7%
Complete and used in analyses (n)	170	601	384	344
Age, mean (SD)	37.6 (13.1)	41.8 (12.9)	42.1 (13.1)	41.0 (12.6)	0.001
Female (%)	95.9%	91.7%	84.4%	92.4%	<0.001^†
Contractual hours (h/wk), mean (SD)	29.4 (6.0)	28.7 (6.1)	28.7 (6.3)	28.6 (6.0)	0.604

ANOVA, ^†chi-square.