The nurse's multiple commitments.

Abstract

Nurses have multiple commitments: organizational, work, professional, job, patient, and personnel. Research has focused almost exclusively on organizational commitment and, to a lesser extent, on professional and job commitment. This fragmented approach to the study of the nurse's commitments neglects the nurse's commitment to patients. The concept of commitment needs to be clarified so that knowledge derived from research on commitment enhances our understanding of how nurses manage these multiple commitments.