This paper aims to investigate nurses’ sense of belonging to the hospital, considering their department and the years spent in the same hospital. The study also aims to investigate the relationship between the sense of belonging and other psychosocial variables, such as communication collective efficacy beliefs, communication self-efficacy, social self-efficacy and burnout. We contacted 840 nurses (47% male and 53% female) working in hospitals in southern Italy, which were administered a self-report questionnaire. Descriptive and correlational analyses and a structural equation model approach were used. The findings showed high levels of nurses’ sense of belonging (with differences by de- partment and seniority) and low levels of burnout. Communication collective efficacy beliefs and seniority in the same hospital resulted predictors of the sense of belonging to the hospital. The sense of belonging and communicative self-efficacy beliefs were negative predictors of all dimensions of burnout.
Keywords: Sense of belonging, hospital, self-efficacy and collective beliefs, burnout, communication, nurses.