Relationship between interprofessional teamwork and intention to leave among acute care hospital staff: a cross-sectional study

We investigated the relationship between interprofessional teamwork assessed using the TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire (T-TPQ) and intention to leave among healthcare staff in a Japanese municipal hospital. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using the T-TPQ and an intention to leave scale. Participants included nurses, allied health professionals (rehabilitation therapists, radiologic technologists, clinical engineers, and pharmacists), and physicians. In assessing the relationship between teamwork and the intention to leave, logistic regression modeling was used to adjust for confounding factors identified through a directed acyclic graph. Among 296 respondents (response rate, 63.4%), 47 (15.9%) reported a high level of intention to leave. Multivariate analysis using the first quartile as the reference showed that higher T-TPQ scores (i.e. higher perception of teamwork) were associated with lower odds of intention to leave. The adjusted odds ratios of the T-TPQ for intention to leave were 0.67 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.27 to 1.66) for the second quartile, 0.31 (95%CI 0.10 to 0.91) for the third quartile, and 0.44 (95%CI 0.13 to 1.45) for the fourth quartile. Higher teamwork perception, as measured by T-TPQ, was associated with a lower intention to leave, highlighting the potential importance of teamwork in retention strategies.