The Effect of COVID-19 Demands on Turnover Intention with the Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion among Nurses

 The Covid-19 disease brought with it demands that were in addition to the previous job demands of nurses and created problems for health-related organizations. In this regard, the aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of the job demands of Covid-19 on the desire to leave the service with the mediating role of emotional exhaustion among nurses.

 The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of how to collect information. The statistical population of the research includes all the nurses of Kausar Hospital in Sanandaj. Based on simple random sampling, 238 questionnaires were distributed and research data were analyzed using SPSS23 and Smart-PLS3 software. To measure the job demands of COVID-19 from the questionnaire of Koch and Shermoli (2021), Emotional exhaustion questionnaire of Moslesh and Jackson (1981), Atwood and Hinshaw questionnaire (1985) was used to measure the tendency to turnover intention.

 The results of the research showed that the COVID-19 demands have a direct relationship on the turnover intention (β=0.375, T=693.3) and the emotional exhaustion of working nurses (β=0.520, T=460.7) in Kosar Hospital, Sanandaj and it has meaning. Also, the results showed that there is a direct and significant relationship between emotional exhaustion and the turnover intention of working nurses (β=0.353, T=3.747) in Kosar Sanandaj Hospital. In addition, the COVID-19 demands have an indirect and significant relationship with the turnover intention with the mediation of emotional exhaustion among nurses working in Kosar Sanandaj Hospital (β=0.123, T=506.2).

 It can be concluded that the usual job demands of nurses are stressful and tiring in themselves, and if the demands of pandemics like Corona become excessive, it can cause emotional exhaustion of nurses and eventually lead to their leaving the service.