Nursing career anchors and professional exercise: is there alignment?

ABSTRACT Objective: to identify the types of career anchors of university hospital nurses and alignment with current work, from the perspective of workers’ health. Method: a descriptive and quantitative study, developed in a university hospital with 135 nurses, from December 2018 to February 2019. The Career Orientations Inventory was used as an instrument and an instrument to assess the alignment of career anchors to the current job. Results: it was identified that the most frequent anchors were: Security/Stability, Service/Dedication to a Cause, and Lifestyle. Among nurses, 63.7% were not aligned with their career anchor. Conclusion: the alignment factor is not prevalent among nurses, demonstrating that most seek to meet their professional motivations, but do not find it in their current work, which can lead to physical exhaustion and psychological distress.