Past and present of registered nurse in China--descriptive analysis of longitudinal national statistics of registered nurse

Background China is now in the midst of period of large population aging, which coincides with a global nurse shortage. What added to this problem is the high turnover rate among nurses.

The longitudinal national statistics of registered nurses were analyzed in order to provide a broad background to understand and interpret the high turnover rate among nurses properly.

A great number of beds, predominantly hospital-based beds, has been hurriedly prepared for potential inpatients in past two decades, and accordingly the increase of medical professionals especially registered nurses. The workload discrepancies of registered nurses among three tiers of hospitals may come from different sources.

This discrepancy is helpful in understanding of high nurse burnout and turnover rate though it seems as inherent systematic problems. A trend of high quality medical service attracting more inpatients has shown, this may cause concerns rather than an satisfied answer, were this trend continued. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Funding Statement No funding Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes Data Availability All raw data are available online at http://www.nhc.gov.cn/mohwsbwstjxxzx/tjzxtjsj/tjsj_list.shtml http://www.nhc.gov.cn/mohwsbwstjxxzx/tjzxtjsj/tjsj_list.shtml