The role of collective affective commitment in the relationship between work–family conflict and emotional exhaustion among nurses: a multilevel modeling approach

BACKGROUND: Work–family conflict (WFC) is a crucial problem in nursing because of the demanding conditions of the job, such as strenuous shifts, physical and emotional workload, and intense patient involvement. Using a multilevel approach, this study investigated the moderating role of collective affective commitment as a protective resource in the relationship between WFC and emotional exhaustion. METHODS: The sample included 647 nurses from 66 working units in 4 Italian hospitals. A self-administrated questionnaire was administered to nurses. To analyze data, hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine cross-level relationships between variables. RESULTS: The results indicated that emotional exhaustion increased with augmenting of WFC and that this relationship was stronger when collective affective commitment was low and weaker when it was high. CONCLUSIONS: The study thus suggests that collective affective commitment may be considered a protective resource for nurses. Moreover, the results show that high work–family conflict should not represent a serious problem when nurses have high affective commitment. Interventions at both individual and group level are discussed in order to mitigate WFC, promoting collective affective commitment and thus reducing emotional exhaustion.