Monitoring the propensity of nursing staff for turnover is an ongoing and costly venture for many managers.  Accessing the right variable in predicting nursing employee tendency for turnover has not been the subject of comparative research to date.  Using a thorough and exhaustive examination of past and current research, this study found that contemporary nursing turnover research studies do not routinely employ organizational commitment as a predictor variable, in spite of evidence suggesting that it is a reliable predictor.  Using selected computer databases and published research studies in English that examined turnover and organizational commitment, an investigation of the previous performance of organizational commitment, as well as a comparison with studies using the more conventional variable of job satisfaction, was undertaken to postulate the future usefulness of both variables.  Studies involving nurses were preferred; however, seminal works related to the development of the concept and its relationships were included.  Twenty-three studies involving nurses were in the final data set related to organizational commitment and turnover.  A subset of twenty-two studies was also generated to compare the variables of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Results indicated robust indirect predictability of organizational commitment overall, with greater predictability by organizational commitment versus job satisfaction in the turnover studies examined [which included two meta-analyses and one research protocol].  This review demonstrated that studies which compared relevant variables in relation to turnover reported organizational commitment as the variable with the most direct impact on antecedents of turnover such as intent to stay.  Thus, a useful variable in nursing turnover research studies is organizational commitment.