Role demands and turnover intention among Covid-19 frontline nurses: The mediating and moderating roles of compassion fatigue and spiritual leadership

Abstract

The working conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic have been proven to amplify frontline nurses’ desire to leave their profession in recent years; thus, exploring new causing variables is vital. This cross-sectional study examined role demands’ direct and indirect effects on turnover intention through compassion fatigue and tested the various dimensions of spiritual leadership as moderators on the relationship between compassion fatigue and turnover intention. A total of 527 valid responses were collected from frontline nurses working in designated hospitals across Zhejiang province in China using a survey questionnaire. The outcomes from the hierarchical regression analysis indicated that role demands positively and significantly impacted turnover intention and compassion fatigue. Besides, compassion fatigue significantly and positively affected turnover intention and mediated its relationship with role demands. However, vision and altruistic love moderated the relationship between compassion fatigue and turnover intention, which was not true for the dimension hope/faith. This study’s findings are a steppingstone for medical firms’ managers and policymakers in demonstrating the likelihood of frontline nurses developing turnover thoughts arising from ambiguous and conflicting roles and the emotional strain from patients’ burdens. Furthermore, an exemplary implementation of spiritual leadership could help enhance nurses’ sense of calling and membership, essential in embracing the organization’s vision and achieving its goals.

Did the Burnout Levels of the Nurses Affect Their Professional Commitment During the Covid -19 Pandemic Process?

“…Nurses who do not work directly with COVID patients have higher occupational satisfaction than those who do. Nurses who care for COVID patients experience more emotional burnout and consider leaving the profession more frequently than other nurses [41,64,68,69]. In addition, working conditions during the pandemic negatively affect the professional commitment of healthcare professionals [20].…”

“…However, these researchers have focused on the psychological effects of the pandemic on nurses' work environment but have not determined its effect on professional commitment. Given the global nurse shortage, we think that we should take steps to improve nurses' professional commitment to keep them in the profession [18,[39][40][41]. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether burnout affected nurses' professional commitment during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Role cognition of assigned nurses supporting Hubei Province in the fight against COVID-19 in China: a hermeneutic phenomenological study

“…Long working hours, shift work, and increased workload were related to the physical and psychological pain of nurses ( Liu et al, 2020 ). Studies have shown that when nurses have role conflicts, their happiness decreases, work pressure increases, negative emotions for work increase, and turnover intention increases ( Kachie et al, 2023 ). Good role cognition helps to improve the negative emotions, role stress, and subjective experience of nurses ( Chen and Changying, 2019 ).…”