Workplace Violence Against Nurses and Its Association With Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention

Abstract

Workplace violence (WPV) directed towards nurses is one of the most serious health issues worldwide, having far-reaching consequences for healthcare provision, nurses’ well-being, and organizations’ internal functioning. This literature review presents a state-of-the-art research in terms of current evidence obtained in recent years (2020–2024) regarding prevalence, causes, and outcomes of workplace violence directed toward nurses, especially concerning its connection with nurses' job satisfaction and turnover intention. Based on systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and large cross-sectional studies conducted in different geographical regions such as Ethiopia, China, USA, and the UK, this paper shows that workplace violence affects from 43.4% to 89.6% of nurses according to the type and settings. In addition, the presented results show that job satisfaction acts as an important mediating variable explaining the link between workplace psychological violence and turnover intention, accounting for 43.97% of the total effect. According to hierarchical regression analysis, workplace violence contributes 32.5% of turnover intention variance when controlling demographic variables. The obtained results emphasize the necessity to implement evidence-based organizational changes, policy reforms, and culture changes in order to prevent nurses’ violence-related injuries and improve their satisfaction, thereby alleviating the problem of worldwide nursing shortage due to nurse turnover.