Association between Organizational Support and Turnover Intention in Nurses: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Although recent studies suggest a negative relationship between organizational support and turnover intention among nurses, there has been no systematic review on this issue. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize and evaluate the association between organizational support and turnover intention in nurses. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023447109). A total of eight studies with 5754 nurses were included. All studies were cross-sectional and were conducted after 2010. Quality was moderate in five studies and good in three studies. We found a moderate negative correlation between organizational support and turnover intention since the pooled correlation coefficient was −0.32 (95% confidence interval: −0.42 to −0.21). All studies found a negative correlation between organizational support and turnover intention ranging from −0.10 to −0.51. A leave-one-out sensitivity analysis showed that our results were stable when each study was excluded. Egger’s test and funnel plot suggested the absence of publication bias in the eight studies. Subgroup analysis showed that the negative correlation between organizational support and turnover intention was stronger in studies in China and Australia than those in Europe. Organizational support has a moderate negative correlation with turnover intention in nurses. However, data regarding the impact of organizational support on turnover intention are limited. Moreover, our study had several limitations, and thus, we cannot generalize our results. Therefore, further studies should be conducted to assess the independent effect of organizational support on turnover intention in a more valid way. In any case, nursing managers should draw attention to organizational support by developing effective clinical practice guidelines for nurses so as to reduce turnover intention.