Home nurses' turnover intentions: the impact of informal supervisory feedback and self-efficacy

Aim. To examine how home nurses' turnover intentions are affected by the quality and frequency of supervisory feedback and by their own self-efficacy. Background. Little is known about effective retention strategies for the growing home healthcare sector that struggles to retain an adequate workforce. While the work environment and supervisors have been found to play a key-role in nurses' turnover intentions, home nurses mostly work autonomously and apart from their supervisors. These circumstances require a customized approach and need to be understood to ensure high-quality home health care. Design. We used a correlational, cross-sectional survey design. Method. A convenience sample of 312 home nurses was selected from a division of a large home health care organization in Flanders, Belgium. Data were collected in 2013 using structured questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics, structural equation modelling and relative weight analysis. Results. The quality of feedback was related to lower levels of turnover intentions. This relationship was fully mediated by home nurses' self-efficacy. Frequent favourable feedback was directly related to lower turnover intentions while the relationship between frequent unfavourable feedback and turnover intentions was conditional on home nurses' level of self-efficacy. Conclusion. This study contributes to our understanding of home nurses' turnover intentions and the role of informal supervisory feedback and home nurses' self-efficacy.