The Relationship between Professional Commitment and Intention to Leave Nursing Career

Abstract

Background and objective: Nurses in current hospitals care for patients with emerging infectious disease who are close contact  patients and environment are affected  to psychological behavior. Nurses’ perceptions of the possibility of emerging infectious disease affect their consequent commitment and intention to leave profession. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between nurses’ commitment to the nursing profession, perceived risk of emerging infectious disease and their intention to leave the profession and perceived risk of emerging infectious disease as a moderator between nurses’ commitment to the nursing profession and intention to leave the profession.
Methods: This study was survey research. The samples were two hundred and forty five nurses working at Srinagarind Hospital of Khon Kaen University. All data were collected in September 2009, with a 5-scale Likert-type self-report questionnaire. The study was tested through Hierarchical Regression Analyses.

Results: The results revealed that professional commitment was negatively associated with intention to leave profession (b=-0.28, P<0.001). Perceived risk of emerging infectious disease showed positive relationship with intention to leave profession (b=-0.44, P<0.001). In addition, perceived risk of emerging infectious disease moderated between professional commitment and intention to leave profession (b=-0.28, P<0.05).

Conclusion: Perceived risk of emerging infectious disease has a possible influence on intention to leave profession. The study has implication for enhancing better information to understand intention to leave nursing for nursing manager about nurse retention following emerging infectious disease and the management of commitment in the context of nursing human resource management.

Keywords: Professional Commitment, Perceived risk of emerging infectious disease, Intention to leave profession.