Abstract:

Background: Pakistan as like developing countries has trained nurses for to meet their health care needs and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Unfortunately these nurses are leaving the country for better opportunities to developed countries.

Objective: The study aims to identify the factors involved in Pakistani nurses moving abroad and to draw together recommendations to retain nurses from the respondents through a questionnaire- based study in a selected government and private tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan

Procedure: Descriptive survey study was conducted in six tertiary care teaching hospitals of Karachi Pakistan. A sample of 307 nurses was taken randomly by lottery technique in six selected government and private hospitals which were demographically situated in different places in Karachi and serves a diversity of population.

Results: The results showed that low salary package, poor image of the nurse, and poor working conditions were the major reasons why nurses would like to leave the country and work or migrate abroad. The United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America are the most popular countries where Pakistani nurses would like to work and migrate.

Conclusion: The reasons for Pakistani nurses moving abroad are linked to the fulfillment of basic human needs, self esteem, safety and security needs. These issues are similar to the reasons of nurses in other source countries.

Keywords: Abroad, Infant mortality rate (IMR), Migration, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),

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