Turnover Intention of Nurses in the outbreak of COVID-19: The Role of Compassion Fatigue, Compassion Satisfaction and Burnout

The prevalence of COVID-19 has caused concern and anxiety in the community. Due to direct contact with patients, nurses have an important role in preventing the spread of COVID-19 and this causes psychological problems in them. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the turnover intention (TI) of nurses in the outbreak of COVID-19: the role of compassion fatigue (CF), compassion satisfaction (CS), and burnout (BO).

The research method was descriptive-correlation. In this study, 312 nurses in Malayer public hospitals participated in the study by census method. TI scale (Cammann et al, 1979) and The Professional Quality of Life Scale (Stamm, 2005) were used to collect the data. The validity and reliability of measuring instruments have been confirmed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), Pearson correlation, and multivariate regression with enter method were used to analyze the data.

The rate of TI, CS, BO and CF in nurses in the outbreak of COVID-19 were 56.41%, 29.81%, 86.54%, and 85.89%, respectively. Female nurses compared to males had higher levels of BO and CF, TI, married nurses compared to single had higher levels of BO and CF, nurses with bachelorchr('39')s degree compared to nurses with masterchr('39')s degree had low levels of CS and high level of BO (p<0.05). ICU and CCU nurses had higher levels of TI, BO, and CF and lower levels of CS than nurses in other wards (p <0.05). There was a significant relationship between CS (r = -0.34), BO (r = 0.36) and CF (r = 0.19) with TI of nurses in the outbreak of COVID-19. Based on the results of multivariate regression, Cs, BO and CF have explained 0.20 of the TI (p = 3.1; f = 25.01). Based on the beta value, CS and CF and BO had a significant role in explaining the TI, respectively (p <0.05). (p <0.05).

According to the findings, psychological program based on the components of quality of work life, such as CS, BO and CF in the outbreak of COVID-19 can be effective in reducing the TI of nurses.