Commitment and the Emigration Intentions of South African Professional Nurses

ABSTRACT

The emigration of skilled nurses from South Africa exacerbates the crisis in the provision of public health services. A descriptive; quantitative design was applied to investigate the relationship between intention to emigrate and employee commitment. Over 400 registered nurses (N = 419); working within public sector tertiary hospitals in the Western Cape; responded to a cross-sectional survey questionnaire. Three foci of employee commitment (organisational; professional and national) were examined but only national commitment significantly helped predict intention to emigrate from South Africa in the regression model (beta = -0.0525; p 0.0001). The implications of the results obtained in this study are discussed