Aims: To review the literature and identify factors that make sense of and influence nurses' career success. We sought to provide insights into achieving nurses' career success. Design: An integrative review conducted in May 2022 using Whittemore and Knafl's methodology of integrative review. Methods: The databases searched were PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and CINAHL. Search criteria included the keywords “nurs*” and “career success” in the title and The quality of the reviewed papers was assessed using the JBI Critical Appraisal Tool for cross‐sectional studies and qualitative research. We extracted five types of information from quantitative studies: the definition of career success, factors of career success instruments, reliability or validity of career success instruments, and factors influencing nursing career success. Furthermore, we extracted two types of information from qualitative studies: themes that imply career success and factors that influence nurses' career success. Primary data were categorized into two perspectives: (1) what nurses' career success means and (2) what influences nurses' career success. Categorized data were unified into similar contents. Themes were developed from unified subgroups. Results: Fourteen studies were included in the analysis. Seven themes were integrated into the factors that make sense of nurses' career success: satisfaction, positive attitude towards work, quality work in nursing, continuation of career and professional development, positive interaction at work, person–organization fit, and enrichment of an individual's life. Three themes were integrated into the factors influencing nursing career success: personal resources, positive behavior toward nursing work and research, and job resources and environment. No Patient or Public Contribution: Patients or members of the public were not involved in this review.

Aim This study aimed to develop the nurses' Work Values Scale (WVS) to determine how important certain values are for nurses and to psychometrically test the scale.Design Instrument development and validation study.Method A two-phase scale development process comprising item generation, scale improvement and psychometric property evaluation was used. In the first phase, scale items were identified. In the second phase, item and exploratory factor analyses were performed in Study 1, and confirmatory factor analysis, validity verification and reliability verification of the nurses' WVS were performed in Study 2.Results As a result of the analysis, a scale of 30 items with four subdomains was developed. In convergent validity and reliability verification, it was shown that the nurses' WVS has acceptable validity and reliability.No Patient or Public Contribution Patients or members of the public were not involved in this study.

This study aimed to classify nurses with similar work values into subgroups by examining their intrinsic, extrinsic, social, and prestige work values. Additionally, we clarified the characteristics of the obtained subgroups using personal attributes, work engagement, and life satisfaction. Using a cross-sectional observational study design, we randomly sampled 52 hospitals in the Tohoku region of Japan and conducted a self-administered questionnaire survey with 2600 nurses. Latent profile analysis was performed to identify the number of subgroups. Of the 1627 collected questionnaires, 1587 were regarded as valid. The latent profile analysis revealed the following five subgroups with strong statistical significance: (1) self-oriented, (2) low, (3) medium-low, (4) medium-high, and (5) high types. The means of work engagement and life satisfaction gradually increased from the (2) low- to (5) high-type subgroups. There were significant differences among the subgroups in terms of marital status, child status, and job title. The (5) high-type subgroup had many nurses with job titles, high work engagement, and high life satisfaction. The (2) low-type subgroup included many nurses who were young, had few years of experience, were married, had children, and had low levels of work engagement and life satisfaction. Preregistration: This study was not registered.

Background: During the COVID‐19 pandemic, nurses’ workload and subjective work‐related burden increased. These issues interacted and exacerbated nurses’ psychological distress. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between nurses’ workload and subjective burden on psychological distress. Methods: We conducted an analytical cross‐sectional analysis using self‐administered questionnaires in December 2020. In total, 1299 nurses working at multiple hospitals in Prefecture A in Japan participated in this study through convenience sampling. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed with psychological distress as the dependent variable and changes in workload and subjective work‐related burden as the independent variables. Results: The mean score of nurses’ psychological distress during the COVID‐19 pandemic was 6.73 ± 5.28. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis demonstrated that psychological distress was positively correlated with workload. However, after the subjective work‐related burden was included as an independent variable, the effect of the change in workload on psychological distress disappeared. An increase in subjective work‐related burden was found to be the biggest influencing factor of psychological distress, with the level of psychological distress higher when the subjective work‐related burden was high. Conclusions: The results suggest that nurses’ psychological distress was significantly affected by subjective burden but not by changes in workload. This study highlighted the impact of subjective burden on the psychological distress of nurses during the early period of the COVID‐19 pandemic. We recommend paying more attention to nurses’ subjective perceptions than issues such as increased workload. The practical suggestion offered is that nursing managers should pay attention to changes in nurses’ workloads and their perceptions of those changes, as subjective perceptions could help reduce psychological distress.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic has disrupted healthcare and public health systems, even in Japan’s universal healthcare context, where administrative coordination and voluntary compliance are central to infection control. Difficulties, including delayed health observations and mismatched isolation arrangements, may have shaped individuals’ emotional memories of their illnesses. We aimed to identify the factors associated with distressing memories of COVID‐19 among adults in Japan. Methods: In August 2022, a nationwide cross‐sectional web‐based survey was conducted among 956 adults who experienced COVID‐19 between January 2020 and August 2022. The participants provided information on their demographics, illness characteristics, isolation settings, and post‐COVID sequelae. Distressing illness memories were measured using a six‐item original scale based on cognitive appraisal theory (Cronbach’s α = 0.87). Multiple regression analysis examined the associations between distress scores and demographic, clinical, and contextual variables. Results: On a total score of 6–24 points, higher distress scores were associated with younger age ( B = −0.06 per year, 95% CI −0.08 to −0.04), female sex ( B = 0.48, 0.22–0.75), coresidence with older adults ( B = 0.58, 0.27–0.90), risk factors for severe illness ( B = 1.07, 0.74–1.41), severe acute symptoms ( B = 0.27, 0.003–0.54), current post‐COVID sequelae ( B = 1.37, 0.88–1.87), and nonpreferred isolation setting ( B = 1.17, 0.65–1.69). Conversely, prompt health observation from public health centers or clinics was associated with lower distress ( B = −0.43, −0.80 to −0.06). Conclusions: Distressing memories of COVID‐19 were associated with physical and contextual factors, including timeliness of the initial public health contact, persistent sequelae, and a mismatch between preferred and actual isolation settings. Early and consistent follow‐ups by health authorities, attention to individual isolation preferences, and integrated psychosocial care may help reduce distress and foster recovery during future public health emergencies.