LAUSR

Retaining committed, engaged nursing staff remains an important but elusive goal for many health systems. The link between engaged nursing staff and high-quality patient outcomes is undisputed, and in this era of cost containment, unwanted turnover of disengaged nursing staff has significant cost implications. With potential nursing shortages anticipated in some geographic regions over the next decade, retaining experienced, engaged registered nurses is more important than ever to ensure a stable workforce (Buerhaus, 2017). Therefore, understanding the determinants that both improve and inhibit high levels of nurse commitment is important for nurse leaders. Workplace social capital, compassion satisfaction and secondary traumatic stress are variables that have been relatively unexplored in the healthcare literature in relation to organisational commitment. However, these variables were recently examined in a sample of 250 Iranian nurses. This reviewed study demonstrated a significant and positive relationship between workplace social capital, compassion satisfaction and organisational commitment. Conversely, this study demonstrated a significant negative relationship between secondary traumatic stress and organisational commitment. Previous research has identified perceptions of transformational leadership and co-worker trust as important variables in promoting organisational commitment of nursing staff (Kramer, 2017). Conceptually, this supports the positive relationship between workplace social capital and affective organisational commitment that was found in the reviewed study. This study finding reinforces how important positive leadership styles and positive work environments are in ensuring a stable nursing workforce.