Consequences of Overqualification in the Nursing Profession: A Systematic Review

Background & Aims Overqualification refers to a situation in which an individual’s skills, education, and experience exceed their job requirements. This phenomenon has significant implications for the nursing profession, given nurses’ critical role in the healthcare system. This study aimed to investigate the psychological, occupational, and organizational consequences of overqualification in nurses. Materials & Methods This is a systematic review of quantitative studies related to the outcomes of overqualification in nurses. The search was conducted in SID, IranMedex, MagIran, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases with no language or time restrictions using keywords such as nurse, nursing, overqualification, and skill mismatch in English and Persian, along with the Boolean operators. A total of 39 articles were identified by the initial search. After screening the titles and abstracts, 8 articles were selected for full-text review. Of these, 6 articles fully met the inclusion criteria and study objectives and were included in the final analysis. Results All included studies were cross-sectional. Three studies were conducted in China, two in Greece, and one in Jordan. The results showed that perceived overqualification among nurses had a significant negative correlation with job engagement (r=-0.562, P=0.05) and job satisfaction (r=-0.674) and a significant positive correlation with job boredom (β=0.44, P<0.001) and job burnout (r=0.12, P<0.05). Furthermore, it was positively associated with nurses’ silence on patient safety concerns (β=0.18, P<0.01), knowledge hoarding (r=0.32), knowledge hiding (r=0.49), and obsessive passion (r=0.087, P<0.001), and a significant negative correlations with harmonious passion (r=-0.076, P<0.001) and affective and normative commitment (r=0.087, P=0.001) Conclusion Perceived overqualification, as an occupational risk factor, is associated with decreased job engagement and satisfaction, as well as increased behaviors such as silence on patient safety concerns and knowledge hiding among nurses. Accordingly, it is recommended that nursing managers implement interventions such as coping and resilience training, task redistribution based on nurses’ competencies, and enhanced nurse participation in decision-making processes to prevent the complications of overqualification in nursing settings.