Staff empowerment practices and CNA retention

Berridge, C., Tyler, D. A., & Miller, S. C. (2016). Staff empowerment practices and CNA retention. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 733464816665204. DOI: 10.1177/0733464816665204

This article examines whether staff empowerment practices common to nursing home culture change are associated with certified nursing assistant (CNA) retention. Data from 2,034 nursing home administrators from a 2009/2010 national nursing home survey and ordered logistic regression were used. After adjustment for covariates, a greater staff empowerment practice score was positively associated with greater retention. Compared with the low empowerment category, nursing homes with scores in the medium category had a 44% greater likelihood of having higher CNA retention (odds ratio [OR] = 1.44; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.15, 1.81], p = .001) and those with high empowerment scores had a 64% greater likelihood of having higher CNA retention (OR = 1.64; 95% CI = [1.34, 2.00], p < 001). Greater opportunities for CNA empowerment are associated with longer CNA retention. This research suggests that staffing empowerment practices on the whole are worthwhile from the CNA staffing stability perspective.