Purpose: To investigate the effect of social support from co-workers, supervisors, family members and friends on the intent to stay among hospital nurses.

Design:  A correlational descriptive survey was used to investigate these relationships among a convenience sample of 288 hospital nurses.Methods:  Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, which included the Social Support Scale (Sarggent and Terry, 2000), the McCain's Intent to Stay Scale (McClosky and McCain, 1987), and the demographic form.  Both scales have well-established reliability. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlations, and regression techniques were used to analyze the data. 
Findings: The correlation between staff nurses’ intention to stay and perceived social support from supervisors (r=.37) and co-workers (r=.25) were significant at p<0.01. That is, participants who perceived having more social support from supervisors and co-workers reported high level of intention to stay in the hospital. Whereas, the correlations between perceived social support from families and friends and staff nurses’ intention to stay were not significant. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that the demographic variables and social support form co-workers, supervisors, families and friends explained 25% of the variation in the level of staff nurses’ intention to stay in hospitals.
Conclusion:  Implications from this study point to the importance of adopting strategies that demonstrate more social support in the workplace for nurses.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)