The study finding showed that 65.5% of respondents were had an intention to leave the hospital. This finding is higher than studies conducted at University of Gondar referral hospital among health professionals 52.5% [17], in nurses working at governmental healthcare institutions of East Gojjam zone 59.4% [21] and nurses in Tukur Anbessa specialized hospital (54.9%) [22]. Additionally, the finding is much higher than the studies conducted among health workers in Tanzania (18.8%), Malawi (26.5%), and South Africa 41.4% [15]. This discrepancy could be due to differences in health institutions infrastructures, study settings, and study participants that includes only nurses.
However, it is lower than studies done among health professionals in Sidama zone public health facilities (84.3%) and Yiraglem and Hawassa referral hospitals (83.7%) [15, 23]. This discrepancy could have resulted from differences in infrastructure in the health institutions, study area, and differences in the study participants that might affect the intention to leave.
Our finding shows that unsatisfied LPs’ with payment and benefit were 3.89 more intended to leave their hospital as compared to their counterparts. This finding is consistent with other similar studies conducted in Ethiopia [19, 21, 22]. This could be explained by the disproportionality of task and benefit they received will pushed to search for a new job. Whereas satisfied professionals want to remain within the organization because of their need to maintain benefits.
Our finding shows that LPs who were unsatisfied with educational opportunity were 3.59 times more likely to leave their organization when compared with their satisfied counterparts. This finding shares the same evidence as poor training opportunity increases intention to leave in other studies too [19, 21, 24]. This can be explained by less professional opportunity may increase job dissatisfaction because of the absence of a chance to grow and develop their own abilities.
Intention to leave was higher among the respondents who were unsatisfied with recognition and reward compared to their counterparts. This might be satisfied professionals believe that losing an organizational reward will be costly and would not find such compensation elsewhere. This finding is supported by studies done on Jordanian nurses which revealed a direct and a buffering effect of recognition of nurses’ performance on the intention to stay at work [25] and Herzberg two factor theory of motivation [26].
The finding also shows LPs who were unsatisfied with the working environment were three times more likely to leave their hospital compared to their counterparts. This finding is in agreement with a study was done in Sidama zone and Jimma zone public health facilities [27, 28] and also supported by Herzberg two factor theory of motivation which identifies recognition, work condition, the nature of the work, and responsibility that influences employee’s intention to stay or leave by affecting their satisfaction [26]. The other possible explanation would be substandard working conditions or lacks important facilities in the workplace such as proper lighting, furniture, restrooms, and other health and safety provisions will facilitate the inconvenience of employees to stay for a long time.
Our study identifies laboratory professionals with high workload were more likely to leave their organization which is congruent with other studies [28, 29]. This could be being overloaded will increase their pressure and will produce high fatigue which leads them to seek employment elsewhere.
Moreover, the study finding shows that LPs with low affective commitment were two times intended to leave their organization compared to these with high affective commitment. This finding is supported by other studies in which committed employees are likely to remain with their organizations [30, 31][31]. This is because if employees feel a sense of belongingness or involved and linked emotionally, they want to stay within the organization.
Conclusion and recommendation
Laboratory professional’s intention to leave public hospitals in ANRS were found to be high, which will be detrimental for both the organization as well as to the employee. Dissatisfaction with a training opportunity, compensation and benefit, recognition at work, working environment, low affective commitment, and high workload were the factors that influence intention to leave. Policy makers and hospital administrators need to develop and institutionalize evidence-based retention strategies to reduce laboratory professionals’ intention to leave.
Limitation of the study
Use of self-reporting measures may have some potential of reporting bias, because of the respondents’ interpretation of the questions. Furthermore, this study was not triangulated with qualitative method. The other limitation was a lack of follow-up, in which the researcher could compare participants’ intentions to leave or stay with their actual turnover actions.