Nurses' views on change management in health care settings: A qualitative study

Aim To discover nurses' views on change management processes in health care settings. Background Because ‘change’ is an inevitable fact of today's health care environments, developing change management competencies at all levels is a must to survive and compete for the organisations and professionals in the health care systems. Methods A descriptive qualitative approach was used. The sample consisted of 18 nurses reached by using snowball sampling. The data were collected through semi‐structured interviews and analysed using the Colaizzi method in the NVivo12 program. Results The results of the study were collected under three main themes: ‘general approaches and initial responses to change’, ‘factors affecting attitudes toward change’ and ‘strategic mistakes made by managers during the change process’. Conclusion The study showed that nurses show different reactions to change. Their attitudes towards change could be affected positively and negatively by the relevant factors. Nurses thought that managers were making strategic mistakes during the change process. Implications for nursing management Recognizing the approaches of nurses and managers towards change and increasing awareness of the mistakes during the change process may contribute to the achievement of the change processes in health care settings.