Relationship between perceived organisational support, self-efficacy, proactive personality and career self-management among nurses: a moderated mediation analysis

Objectives Career self-management is believed to be a critical behaviour in the new career era. However, the underlying mechanisms that stimulate nurses’ career self-management are unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the mediating effect of self-efficacy and the moderating effect of proactive personality on the relationship between perceived organisational support and career self-management among nurses.Design This was a cross-sectional survey.Setting and participants A total of 1866 nurses from 15 hospitals across 15 cities in China were recruited for this study.Primary and secondary outcome measures The Perceived Organizational Support Scale, General Self-efficacy Scale, Proactive Personality Scale and Individual Career Management Questionnaire were used. Data were analysed using moderated mediation regressions with Hayes’ PROCESS macro in SPSS version 26.0.Results General self-efficacy mediated the relationship between perceived organisational support and career self-management. Proactive personality moderated the direct (B=0.043, p