Relationship between burnout and intention to leave amongst clinical nurses: The role of spiritual climate.

Objective: This study aims to identify the role that spiritual climate has in reducing burnout and intentions to leave amongst clinical nurses.

Background: Both shortages and the high turnover of nurses are challenging problems worldwide. Enhancing the spiritual climate amongst nurses can enhance teamwork, organisational commitment and job satisfaction and can play a role in reducing burnout and turnover intention.

Methods: A total of 207 clinical nurses working at a tertiary university hospital were included in this cross-sectional, single-site study. Independent-samples t test and ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were used to explore the relationships amongst related factors.

Results: Most clinical departments showed a moderate spiritual climate (60.24 ± 0.82) with high job burnout (33.62 ± 0.28) and turnover intention (2.37 ± 0.57). A good spiritual climate was correlated with high job satisfaction (r = 0.412, p < 0.01), low burnout and turnover intention (r = -0.423, p < 0.01 and r = -0.292, p < 0.01, respectively). Spiritual climate could also indirectly influence nurses' job burnout and turnover intention (R2  = 10.31%).

Conclusions: Different departments have different spiritual climates. The findings from this study indicate that spiritual climate may impact nursing burnout and turnover. Conclusions: Using a spiritual climate scale provides health care decision-makers with clear information about staff spirituality well-being. Interventions to improve spiritual climate can benefit teamwork in clinical departments.