The factors influencing nurses? intent to leave: Organizational climate, sociodemographic and job characteristics

Aim: This study aims to analyze sociodemographic and job characteristics as well as organizational climate that influence nurses? intent to leave.Method: The sample of this definitive study consisted of 533 nurses, 292 from public hospitals and 261 from university hospitals. The data were collected via an ?Organizational Climate Scale? and a questionnaire form that includes questions about the nurses? intent to leave and, their sociodemographic and job characteristics. Several subscales of ?Organizational Climate Scale?, team work, human relations, negative interaction and communication, were used in the study. The scale, developed by Bilir (2005), was designed as a 5-point Likert-type scale and reliability co-efficients of the subscales were found to be between .76 and .87. The data analysis was conducted with definitive statistics, Chi-square test, Spearman?s correlation, and logistic regression analysis.Findings: The evaluation of the results illustrated that 20.3% of the nurses participated in the study have never intention to leave, 51.0% were found to consider leaving at high levels and 49.0% were found to consider leaving at low levels. The intent to leave was not found to be related to age, education, marital status, the years spent in the present institution and working unit, working hours and position. It was also noted that nurses with children, surgery nurses, and nurses working at both day and night shifts had higher levels of intent to leave. There was a moderate negative correlation between nurses? intent to leave and organizational commitment and job satisfaction while a moderate positive correlation was found between intent to leave and job stress and work load. It was further reported that there was a moderate negative correlation between intent to leave and human relations and team work. Moreover, a moderate negative correlation was reported between intent to leave and communication and a moderate positive correlation was found between intent to leave and negative interaction. Logistic regression analysis illustrated that 22% of the reasons for intent to leave consisted of a set of variables, organizational commitment, job stress, negative interaction, shift, and job satisfaction, in respect to significance.Results: In light of the study results, it was found that since nurses? intent to leave can be affected by a variety of factors such as organizational climate, sociodemographic and job characteristics, managers of the medical institutions should develop a multi perspective approach in their management plans and initiatives. The study results also highlighted that the intent to leave can be reduced by strengthening the interpersonal relations in the organization, reducing the job burden and stress, and enhancing the organizational commitment and job satisfaction.Keywords: Nursing, the intent to leave, organizational climate.