Abstract

Background: Turnover intention is defined as a conscious and deliberate willingness to leave an organization. Employees who are committed to an organization internalize the organizational goals. The purpose of this study was to determine the magnitude of staff turnover and assess the relationships among organizational commitment, turnover intention and job satisfaction of health workers engaged in Public Private Mix health facilities.

Method: This research employed a cross-sectional study design. The study population of this study was all health workers employed in private health facilities in Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia. To this end, four hundred forty-seven record reviewed and one hundred health professionals which participated in the study, were selected from forty-five health facilities using simple random sampling technique. The researcher collected the relevant data from health workers using Brayfield and Rothe’s index of job satisfaction survey tools and Meyer and Allen’s items of Affective. Continuance and Normative organizational commitment and intention to quit current job were measured using three items Lance inventory. The researchers analyzed the data using mean, standard deviation, correlation, linear regression and Analysis of Variance (one-way ANOVA).

Results: In forty-five PPM surveyed health facilities, out of 474 employees the magnitude of staff turnover was 24 percent. Moreover, almost half of them, (46%) want to leave their current job. The results showed that there was evidence of positive correlation between health workers’ job satisfaction and their organizational (r=0.574, p<0.01) affective commitment (r=0.596, p<0.01), normative commitment (r=0.504, p<0.01), continuance commitment (r =0.204, p<0.05). Likewise, there is a positive relation between turnover intention and continuance commitment (r=0.376, p<0.01). However, turnover intention is negatively correlated with job satisfaction (r=-0.328, p<0.01), marital status (r=-0.332, p<0.01), and age (r=-0.268, p<0.01). Similarly, gender is negatively correlated with age (r=-338, p<0.01), and level of education (r=-0.331, p<0.01). In this study, the researcher found no statistical significant variation in turnover intention between males and females (p>0.05). The mean score of turnover intensions were computed against mean score of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The results showed that, beta (β) coefficient from the general linear regression, adjusted models an increase in mean turnover intention score per unit increase in continuance commitment score at β 0.432 (0.197, 0.500), p<0.05. While, an increase in mean turnover intention score per unit decreases in job satisfaction and affective commitment score β -0.318(-0.399, -0.100) and β -0.467(-0.477, -0.215), p<0.05, respectively.

Conclusions: Consequently, per this finding it was concluded that there is high staff turnover and intention to turnover in public private mix health facilities and the level of health professionals’ organizational commitment can be enhanced by creating a more satisfying working environment. Therefore, the public health sector should strive to improve the work environment of the private sector and work closely with the private sector on staff retention mechanisms.

Keywords: Turnover intention; Organizational commitment; Job satisfaction; Public private mix; Ethiopia