An examination of the relationships between organizational support, trust, identification, and commitment among disabled healthcare workers employed in public hospitals in Turkey

Disabled healthcare workers represent an underrepresented segment of the health workforce and may experience organizational life differently because of structural and psychosocial barriers. This study examined the associations among perceived organizational support, organizational trust, organizational identification, and organizational commitment in disabled healthcare workers employed in public hospitals in Türkiye, and exploratory analyses considered whether selected associations varied by disability degree.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 316 disabled healthcare professionals working in 15 public hospitals in Ankara between November 2023 and February 2024. Data were collected using a survey method. The structural validity of the scales used in the research was examined with confirmatory factor analysis, their reliability with the internal consistency coefficient, and the relationships between variables with structural equation modeling. We also tested whether disability degree moderated selected associations in the model to assess whether the classic support–trust–identification–commitment framework operates uniformly within this marginalized workforce.

Perceived organizational support was positively associated with organizational trust (p<.001; β = 0.808) and organizational commitment (p=.012; β = 0.258), while organizational trust was positively associated with organizational identification (p<.001; β = 0.774) and organizational commitment (p=.016; β = 0.322). Perceived organizational support was not significantly directly associated with organizational identification, but its indirect association via trust was significant. Moderation analysis indicated that disability degree moderated selected associations, particularly the relationship between organizational trust and organizational commitment.

The findings were broadly consistent with the relevance of supportive and trust-related organizational experiences for disabled healthcare workers in public hospitals. However, because the study was cross-sectional, self-reported, and showed substantial shared method variance, the results should be interpreted cautiously and as associative rather than causal.