Association between Emotional Labor, Emotional Dissonance, Burnout and Turnover Intention in Clinical Nurses: A Multiple-Group Path Analysis across Job Satisfaction

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the influence of emotional labor, emotional dissonance, and burnout on nurse's turnover intention and examine the effect of job satisfaction on the relationships among emotional labor, emotional dissonance, burnout, and turnover intention. Methods: The sample consisted of 350 nurses recruited from 6 general hospitals in 2 cities in Korea. A multiple-group analysis was utilized. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistics 23 and AMOS 20. Results: In the path analysis, turnover intention was directly related to burnout in clinical nurses who had a high job satisfaction (beta=.24, p=.003), while it was indirectly related to emotional dissonance (beta=.13, p=.002). In the multiple-group path analysis, turnover intention was directly related to emotional dissonance (beta=.18, p=.033) and burnout (beta=.26, p=.002) for nurses with low job satisfaction. Conclusion: These results indicate that manuals and guidelines to alleviate the negative effects of emotional labor, emotional dissonance, and bumout, and to increase job satisfaction are strongly required to reduce turnover intention in nurses at the organizational level as well as at the individual level.