The role of job satisfaction, work engagement, self-efficacy and agentic capacities on nurses' turnover intention and patient satisfaction

Abstract

BackgroundNurses' voluntary turnover is a worrying global phenomenon which affects service quality. Retaining nursing staff within a hospital is important to eliminate the negative influence of voluntary turnover on the quality of care and organisation costs. ObjectivesThis research helps explain nurses' voluntary turnover by analysing the role of self-efficacy, agentic capacities, job satisfaction, and work engagement on hospital turnover intention, and to study the relationships between these variables and patient satisfaction. Setting and participantsThis study gathered data from 194 nurses and 181 patients from 22 inpatient wards at two hospitals in southern Italy. ResultsCorrelation analysis revealed that job satisfaction, work engagement, self-efficacy and agentic capacities were positively interrelated and negatively correlated with turnover intention. Path analysis showed that self-efficacy, some agentic capacities (anticipation and self-regulation), job satisfaction, and work engagement had direct or indirect effects on nurses' turnover intention, and that job satisfaction exerted a stronger effect on turnover intention. Also, patient satisfaction was positively correlated with nurses' job satisfaction, work engagement, self-efficacy, self-regulation and anticipation and negatively correlated with nurses' turnover intention. ConclusionResults highlighted the importance of implementing actions (for example through feedforward methodology and the goal setting technique) to improve self-efficacy, self-regulation skill, work engagement and job satisfaction in order to reduce nurses' turnover intention and increase patient satisfaction with nursing care.