Analysis of factors influencing attrition among clinical traditional Chinese medical major graduates: based on a discrete choice experiment.

Background: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is essential for promoting health worldwide. Despite governmental support, TCM faces critical challenges, including workforce shortages and high attrition rates, with many clinical TCM graduates pursuing non-clinical careers. This study aims to explore the employment preferences of these graduates and to propose strategies for retaining TCM professionals, optimizing the input-output ratio of TCM education, and supporting the sustainable development of the TCM industry.

Methods: A stratified sampling method was used to select clinical TCM major graduates from 16 universities of Chinese medicine. A Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) was conducted to investigate the factors influencing the attrition of clinical TCM professionals, including monthly income, work location, housing security, workload, work environment, and promotion opportunities. A mixed logit model was applied to analyze the DCE data.

Results: A total of 273 clinical TCM major graduates were included in the primary DCE analysis. The monthly income was more important than other attributes (RAI = 48.03%). Among non-economic factors, participants expressed the strongest willingness to decrease workload, being willing to forgo 3,370.312 yuan (approximately $500.3) in monthly income to reduce heavy workloads to moderate levels. Other significant factors included work environment (RAI = 13.64%), housing security (RAI = 9.47%), and promotion opportunities (RAI = 5.33%), with work location being the least important (RAI = 3.3%). Subgroup analysis showed that rural graduates were more willing than urban graduates to forgo monthly income for promotion opportunities. Graduates from the central region of China valued work environment and housing security more than those from the eastern and western regions. Postgraduates were more likely than undergraduates to give up monthly income for housing security.

Conclusion: In addition to economic factors, non-economic factors are also critical considerations for clinical TCM major graduates in their employment decisions. A combination of measures, including offering lower workloads, better work environments, housing security, and promotion opportunities, should be adopted to stabilize the employment environment for clinical TCM graduates.