Title  Migração dos enfermeiros portugueses na Europa (Original)
         Migration of Portuguese nurses in Europe (EN)
Author  Ana Marina Carreira Leal
Advisors Inês Fronteira and Isavel Craveiro
Year  2013
Institution  Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Degree  Masters
Area  Health and Development
Keywords Public health, Migration, Nurses, Human resources
URI  https://run.unl.pt/handle/10362/19150

Abstract 

The migration between the Portuguese healthcare professionals, particularly between the nurses, is a problem already confirmed either in the media or asking the professionals themselves, and it is becoming, as mentioned BUCHAN (2007), a central theme of debate on health policy worldwide. On the other hand, the European population, regarded as the most aged worldwide, is a matter of great concern. Due to this aging population, it is estimated that there will be a higher prevalence of chronic diseases among the population and are the main caregivers nurses responsible for responding to this problem. However, due to the needs of professionals in some countries with a shortage of nurses, there has been a globalization of nursing practices, creating migratory flows. Thus, nurses are trained in a ‘source’ country and they will work in a destination country, that corresponds to the concept of “brain drain”, which is the output of highly qualified professionals in their ‘source’ country, where they were formed, to a destination country, where they will use the skills acquired in a working world more attractive and with more options available. In this study we chose a qualitative methodology, which has been made with a non-probability sample of nurses who are currently exercising their profession in another country in Europe. This sample was obtained from the sampling by a snowball system, in which nurses having been submitted to a semi-structured interview. We wanted to engage, not only some of the reasons for the emigration of Portuguese nurses to another country in Europe, as well as to identify and understand the personal characteristics of this group of professionals who incited them to make that decision. In turn, the factors that prevent the departure to the destination country and the factors that would boost the return were also important in our study because we wanted to get data to allow, in the near future, to collaborate in human resources policy that would allow retaining these professionals in Portugal.