Surface acting, emotional exhaustion, career calling and turnover intention among student nurses: A cross-sectional study.

Aim: This study aims to explore the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of career calling in the linkage of surface acting and turnover intention among student nurses in the final clinical practicum.

Background: Turnover rates are especially high for graduating nursing students. Surface acting is considered an important factor that affects this rate among nurses. However, little is known about the relationships between surface acting and turnover intentions among graduating nursing students in the final clinical practicum.

Design: The current research is a cross-sectional study, and the data were collected from 8 January 2022-22 January 2022.

Methods: A survey was completed by 275 graduating nursing students. This survey included Chinese translations of scales measuring surface acting, emotional exhaustion, career calling and turnover intentions.

Results: Both surface acting (r = 0.47, p < 0.001) and emotional exhaustion (r = 0.59, p < 0.001) correlated positively with turnover intentions. Both surface acting (r = -0.41, p < 0.001) and emotional exhaustion (r = -0.62, p < 0.001) correlated negatively with career calling and career calling (r = -0.72, p < 0.001) correlated negatively with turnover intentions. The association between surface acting and turnover intention was mediated by emotional exhaustion. In addition, career calling moderated the relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion.

Conclusions: Surface acting results in higher emotional exhaustion and higher turnover intention among graduating nursing students, which was more pronounced among nursing students with a lower sense of career calling.