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.

Elucidating nurses’ work values will contribute to creating a work environment consistent with individual nurses’ work values and help them overcome challenging situations. This study aimed to create a short version of the Nurses’ Work Values Scale and verify its psychometric properties and usability among nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and licensed practical nurses. The short version was developed in three steps. In Step 1, a 12‐item scale was created from the original 30‐item Nurses’ Work Values Scale via a multidimensional item response theory based on data obtained from 1587 nurses. In Step 2, we modified the wording of the items and verified the scale’s content validity. In Step 3, we obtained new data from 1220 nurses, public health nurses, midwives, and licensed practical nurses who worked in various settings. Subsequently, we verified the psychometric properties of the 12‐item scale. The developed scale made it possible to measure work values among nurses working in hospitals, nursing care facilities, visiting nursing settings, and public health nurses. Simultaneously, the burden of responding to surveys was reduced. In the future, it is hoped that this scale will be used on a large longitudinal cohort of nurses working in various workplaces to track life events and changes in family background, thereby clarifying changes in work values and the factors that influence them. In addition, by knowing nurses’ values, nursing managers can take measures such as adjusting work to match each nurse’s work values. This could help promote alignment between the values of individuals and organizations and reduce turnover rates.

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: Turnover among hospital nurses remains a major challenge for healthcare systems. Although various factors have been linked to turnover intention, few studies have examined them together. Therefore, we examined these factors within a single analytical model. Methods: In 2025, a cross-sectional survey was distributed through 70 hospitals randomly selected from the Tohoku and Kanto regions of Japan; individual nurses were selected at the discretion of each hospital, and data from 411 nurses were analysed. Turnover intention and affective organizational commitment were measured using previously validated scales, and intrinsic job satisfaction and satisfaction with financial rewards using scales developed for this study. The measurement model was examined using confirmatory factor analysis, which provided preliminary support for the two scales developed for this study. Multiple regression was performed, and relative weight analysis estimated each factor’s proportional contribution to the explained variance. Results: All three factors were significantly negatively associated with turnover intention. Relative weight analysis indicated that intrinsic job satisfaction accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance (44.49%), followed by affective organizational commitment (31.98%) and satisfaction with financial rewards (13.50%). Conclusions: Different job-related attitudes among nurses may contribute differently to turnover intention. The quality of work experiences and supportive organizational environments warrant evaluation as potential targets for future intervention research.

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has imposed substantial psychological and physical burdens on nursing professionals, particularly in Asia, where anxiety, depression, and burnout are common. In Japan, stigma may intensify distress, highlighting the need to assess symptoms and perceived workload. However, most studies were conducted at a single time point and cannot show how these burdens differ across changing infection rates, policies, and vaccination status. Objective: To compare psychological distress and subjective work-related burden among three independent samples of Japanese hospital nursing professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A repeated cross-sectional survey was conducted during three pandemic phases, with an independent sample at each: December 2020 (pre-vaccination), July 2022 (seventh infection wave), and November 2023 (post-reclassification). Web-based surveys were administered at 138 hospitals in one Japanese prefecture. Psychological distress was measured using the K6 scale and subjective mental and physical burden using one original item each. Differences among waves were examined using one-way analysis of variance, effect sizes (η ² ), and Steel–Dwass post hoc comparisons. Results: A total of 4,194 participants were analysed. Psychological distress and subjective burden differed significantly among waves, although effect sizes were small (η ² = .008–.012). Mean K6 scores were higher in July 2022 than in December 2020 or November 2023. The proportion with psychological distress (K6 ≥ 5) ranged from 59.3% to 67.9%, and that with severe distress (K6 ≥ 13) from 14.1% to 23.9%. Mental burden was highest in December 2020 and lowest in November 2023; physical burden showed the opposite pattern. In 2020, participants with COVID-19 care experience reported higher distress, but no such difference was observed in 2022 or 2023. Conclusion: Sustained psychological support for nursing professionals remains essential beyond acute crises. Tailored interventions should address mental strain and cumulative physical fatigue to strengthen workforce resilience.