Global prevalence of turnover intention among intensive care nurses: A meta-analysis

Nurse turnover is considered a major cause of nurse shortage, representing problems for health care systems in terms of both quality and cost of care for patients, and intention to leave is the strongest practical predictor variable of actual turnover.

This systematic review and meta-analysis aims at exploring the global prevalence of turnover intention in intensive care nurses.

This was a systematic literature review.

A systematic review of empirical quantitative studies on turnover intention in nurses of intensive care units (ICUs), published in English till March 2021, was conducted. The databases PubMed, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge, and CINAHL were searched. Eligible studies were observational or descriptive studies that reported the prevalence of turnover intention among nurses in all types of ICUs. The quality of studies was assessed using a modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. A random effect meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the pooled prevalence of turnover intention among ICU nurses.

We identified 18 cross-sectional studies investigating a total of 23 140 intensive care nurses from 23 countries. The intention to leave rate was ranged from 3.0% to 75.0%. The pooled prevalence of turnover intention was 27.7% (95% confidence interval: 21.6%-34.3%).

This meta-analysis showed that more than 27% of the intensive care nurses had the intention to leave worldwide. In the current context of nursing shortage, efforts should be made to improve conditions for this important group of care providers.

The prevalence of turnover intention is relatively high among intensive care nurses. Nurse managers should take this intention seriously, as the intention to leave may lead to an actual decision to leave the profession.