The impact of socio-demographic variables and working environment characteristics on the organizational commitment of nurses

ABSTRACT The Impact of Socio-Demographic Variables and Working Environment Characteristics on the Organizational Commitment of Nurses Enhancement of the organizational commitment of nurses who constitute a large part of the workforce in health care institutions is important for the quality of the health care to be provided. To achieve this aim, factors affecting the organizational commitment of nurses should be identified. This descriptive and relationship-seeking study was carried out to investigate the effects of socio-demographic characteristics and features of the working environment on the organizational commitment of nurses working in public and private hospitals. The research was conducted between December 12, 2016 and March 31, 2017 in two public and two private hospitals in Istanbul, the biggest city of Turkey. The study sample comprised 303 nurses having worked in these four hospitals for at least one year and volunteering to participate in the study. The study data were collected using the "Personal Information Form", "Three Dimensional Organizational Commitment Scale" and "The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index". The data were analyzed with the descriptive analysis, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis test and Spearman's correlation analysis. The organizational commitment of the nurses participating in the study was determined to be moderate (2.96±0.52). They obtained the highest and lowest scores on the affective commitment and continuance commitment subscales of the organizational commitment scale respectively. Of the participating nurses, those who were ≥35 years old, who worked in private hospitals, who were nurse managers/educators, who stated that they were professionally respected in the hospital they worked in, who thought they were autonomous, who thought they were treated fairly, who considered they had a balanced work and social life, and who thought there was a good communication and cooperation in the work place achieved higher organizational commitment. According to the nurses' statements, the nursing working environment was moderately good (2.22±0.43). In addition, it was determined that the nurses whose working environment score was high also had higher organizational commitment scores. In conclusion, nurses' organizational commitment levels are related to the caharacteristics of the working environment rather than personal factors. Therefore, if nurses' organizational commitment is to be enhanced, their working environment should be improved. Keywords:Working Environment, Nurses,Organizational Commitment, Socio-demographic Caharacteristics