ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
The impact of workplace psychological violence on clinical nurses' turnover intention: the mediating role of perceived stress
Provisionally accepted
- 1North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, China
- 2Deyang People's Hospital, Deyang, China
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Background: The global shortage of nurses has become a significant health emergency, and nurses' turnover intention is a key influencing factor, serving as an important predictor of actual turnover rates. However, studies integrating workplace psychological violence, perceived stress, and turnover intention in the same mediation model are still limited, so there is an urgent need to explore in depth the mediating effect of perceived stress between workplace psychological violence and turnover intention. Objective: To examine the mediating effect of nurses' perceived stress on the relationship between workplace psychological violence and turnover intention among nurses in tertiary general hospitals in Southwest China. Methods: Between October 2024 and March 2025, 798 nurses from 9 tertiary general hospitals in southwest China were selected by a convenience sampling method for the study. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using the General Information Questionnaire, Turnover Intention Scale, Psychological Violence in the Workplace Scale, and Perceived Stress Scale. The mediating effect was examined using SPSS and PROCESS Model 4. Results: Turnover intention was positively correlated with Workplace Psychological Violence (r= 0.364, P<0.001) and with Perceived Stress (r= 0.423, P<0.001), and Workplace Psychological Violence was positively correlated with Perceived Stress (r= 0.486, P<0.001). Perceived stress showed a partial mediating effect in the influence of psychological violence in the workplace on turnover intention, with a mediating effect value of 0.129, and the mediating effect accounted for 36.96% of the total effect. Conclusion: Perceived stress demonstrates a mediating effect between workplace psychological violence and turnover intention among nurses. Nursing managers can reduce perceived stress among nurses by decreasing workplace psychological violence, thus reducing nurses' turnover intention, improving nurses' job satisfaction and mental health, and promoting the stability and sustainable development of the nursing team.
Keywords: Nurses, turnover intention, workplace psychological violence, perceived stress, Mediating effect
Received: 24 Jul 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Tan, Zhong, Han, Xia, Fan and He. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lin He, 15388132378@163.com
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