Job Turnover Intention and Associated Factors among Physicians in a Tertiary Hospital in Southwest Nigeria

Background: Job turnover intention is the last element in the turnover process.Recently, there has been a mass exodus of health workers away from Nigeria especially the physicians.This warrants a study of the turnover intentions of these individuals.This study was therefore, conducted to assess the level of turnover intentions and associated factors among physicians at the University College Hopsital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria.Materials and Methods: Between August and October, 2021, the cross-sectional survey recruited 215 physicians who had worked for at least one year in UCH using a stratified random sampling method.The questionnaire contained questions assessing the sociodemographic characteristics, overall job satisfaction, job turnover intention, and mental health status of the participants.A logistic regression model of turnover intention was developed which identified predictors (p 0.05) Results: The mean age of respondents was 35.8 5.2 years.Over half of the physicians had turnover intention (121: 56.3%) and a higher percentage had intention to travel abroad (101: 83.5%).Only 85 (39.5%) physicians showed that they were satisfied and 142 (66.0%) physicians had poor mental health status.The bivariate analysis revealed that job satisfaction (p = 0.000), mental health status (p = 0.003), and the number of dependants (p = 0.014) were associated with turnover intention.However, the binary logistic regression identified only job satisfaction and the number of dependants as predictors of turnover intention.Conclusion: More than half of the physicians surveyed had turnover intentions which was predicted by the level of job satisfaction and the number of dependants.