Effects of nurses' socio-demographic characteristics and quality of work life on their organizational commitment

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of nurses' socio-demographic characteristics and quality of work life on their organizational commitment. This descriptive study was carried out with 376 nurses who had been working for at least one year in four hospitals located in Istanbul, a province in Turkey, between December 2016 and August 2017 and agreed to participate in the study. A questionnaire consisting of three parts was used as the data collection tool: "Socio-demographic Characteristics Form", "Quality of Nursing Work Life Survey" and "Organizational Commitment Scale". In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-test and ANOVA test were used. The nurses in the study had a moderate level of work life and organizational commitment. There was no statistically significant correlation between the sub-scales of the organizational commitment scale and the nurses' socio-demographic and occupational characteristics such as gender, age, education level, marital status, having children, department worked in, service in profession and service in the institution. Of the nurses, who work in a private hospital, who work in service, who only work day or night shift type and whose length of service in the department is two years or less had significantly higher affective commitment and normative commitment levels. Of the nurses, those who had a good economic status, whose work place provided them with a kindergarten, housing, transportation service and private health insurance had significantly higher normative commitment levels too. While affective commitment levels were higher among the nurses working in the private hospitals, continuance commitment levels were higher among the nurses working in the state hospitals. A statistically significant relationship was determined between affective commitment and normative commitment levels of nurses and their quality of work life. In order to increase nurses' quality of work life levels and to ensure their retention in the institution, health institutions and managers of nursing services should develop strategies that will positively contribute to their organizational commitment levels. Keywords: Quality of work life, organizational commitment, nursing