How work-family conflict influences emergency department nurses' turnover intention: The mediating role of positive and negative affect.

Background: Turnover has significant impact on nursing management and nursing safety. Nurses working in the Emergency Department are especially vulnerable to high turnover intention because of their increased risk of work-family conflict associated with the work characteristics.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effects of work-family conflict on emergency nurses' turnover intention and the role of positive and negative affect between work-family conflict and turnover intention.

Methods: A cross-sectional study. Data were collected from 17582 nurses working in emergency department in China. We employed a standardized questionnaire to collect sociodemographic information and target work-family conflict, affect and turnover intention. Mediation analyses were performed for the data analyses.

Results: On turnover intention, work-family conflict exerted both direct effect and indirect effect. The results also indicated that positive and negative affect partially mediated the effect of work-family conflict on turnover intention, and that 35.7% of this effect could be explained by mediating effects totally.

Conclusions: The findings highlight positive and negative affect concern during the process of nursing management and nursing managers should take active measures to reduce negative affect and improve positive affect in order to reduce turnover intention and maintain the stability of the emergency nursing workforce.