| The purpose of this research was to quantify clinical leadership among staff nurses working in rural areas, examine its determinants and impact on job satisfaction and retention. The nursing shortage is growing and is heightened in rural areas. Retention of nurses due to job dissatisfaction contributes to the shortage and negatively impacts patient care. Clinical leadership has been acknowledged as being important for job satisfaction, and retention. Clinical leadership behaviors, including clinical expertise, communication, coordination, collaboration, and interpersonal understanding, are important for staff nurses in providing quality, safe patient care. Clinical leadership is imperative for rural nurses due to the generalist role of caring for the spectrum of patients, and role overlap. This study was a nonexperimental cross-sectional survey, designed to allow for concurrent measurement of variables including clinical leadership, satisfaction, and intent to stay, and explore the associations between them. Data were collected using instruments designed to measure clinical leadership, satisfaction with work and career, and intent to stay. The sample consisted of 85 registered nurses employed at critical access hospitals. Analysis utilized descriptive statistics to quantify clinical leadership and professional satisfaction of rural staff nurses. Structural equation modeling was done to assess the association between clinical leadership and professional satisfaction of nurses and intent to stay in their job. Results indicated that staff nurses in critical access hospitals utilize clinical leadership when providing patient care (4.6 ± 0.3). |