Mental health of healthcare professionals: headaches and professional commitment interact to impact nurse turnover intention

Abstract

PurposeNurses' health is vital for retaining nurses in the profession. However, lack of study has examined how headaches and professional commitment interact to impact professional turnover intention. This study aims to examine the moderating effect of nurses' headaches on the relationship among professional commitment factors (affective professional commitment, continuance professional commitment and normative professional commitment) and nurses' professional turnover intention.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a two-wave design and questionnaires to survey 524 nurses from a large medical center in Taiwan during February and March 2017 (the first wave) and June and August 2017 (the second wave). Headaches were measured using descriptions formulated by the International Headache Society. Items measuring other constructs came from relevant literature. Regression analysis was used to assess relationships between the constructs.FindingsAll aspects of professional commitment are negatively related to professional turnover intention (B [CI] = −0.47 [−0.58, −0.36], −0.20 [−0.29, −0.11], −0.22 [−0.32, −0.12], p < 0.001). Headaches reduce the negative relation between affective professional commitment and professional turnover intention (B [CI] = 0.14 [0.02,0.27], p = 0.02).Practical implicationsHeadaches could interfere with nurses' commitment to the nursing profession and influence nurses' intention to leave. Managers should seek means to help alleviate nurses' headaches.Originality/valueThis study is the first to examine how headaches and professional commitment interact to influence nurses' professional turnover intention.

Understanding organizational learning in a healthcare organization during sudden and disruptive change

“…, 2021; Cotel et al. , 2021; Pham et al ., 2022), whilst some educational opportunities within the sector were paused (Spetz, 2021). This study is not about the pandemic, but rather puts healthcare workers' experiences in perspective to understand recovery from crisis.…”

“…Pre-pandemic, the healthcare workforce experienced substantially high levels of demands and distinct lack of resources (McFadden et al, 2021), with increasing patient numbers, severity of cases, and workload (Al-Harthy et al, 2016), a higher impact on their mental health than for the general public (Mark and Smith, 2012), including emotional exhaustion (Johnson et al, 2012) and burnout (Al-Harthy et al, 2016;Mark and Smith, 2012;Maunder et al, 2006), and worrying impact on patient care and safety (Magner et al, 2021;Kakemam et al, 2021). During the pandemic, for a prolonged period of time never before experienced, workload, work demands and, as a result, mental ill-health worsened among healthcare workers to highly concerning levels (Magner et al, 2021;Cotel et al, 2021;Pham et al, 2022), whilst some educational opportunities within the sector were paused (Spetz, 2021). This study is not about the pandemic, but rather puts healthcare workers' experiences in perspective to understand recovery from crisis.…”