Nurses’ Early Career Organizational and Occupational Commitment Trajectories: A Dual Target Growth Mixture Investigation

Abstract

This study was designed to document the development of nurses’ affective commitment to their occupation and organization during the first five years of their career, as well as the connections between these two types of commitment trajectories. We also considered the associations between these early trajectories, nurses’ levels of psychological need satisfaction, and the quality of their early socialization. We finally investigated the implications of these trajectories for nurses’ work satisfaction, psychological distress, somatization, and patient care quality. Relying on a sample of 659 newly registered nurses (M_age = 26.8; 88% females) measured four times over a two-year period, we relied on growth mixture analyses to assess the shape of their commitment trajectories defined as a function of tenure. These analyses revealed four profiles, similar across targets of commitment: High, Moderate, Low and Increasing, and Average/Low and Decreasing. For both targets, higher levels of commitment were anchored in more stable trajectories, and with better functioning across outcomes. Need fulfilment and socialization experiences helped drive more desirable trajectories and provided short-term boosts in commitment. Overall, we found more similarities than differences between both forms of commitment, and noted that nurturing one type of commitment seemed to help develop the other.