Nurses’ perception of psychological empowerment and its relationship to work engagement and job insecurity

Abstract

Background and objective: Psychological empowerment and work engagement are vital factors to consider when managing changes in workplace and enhancing both individual and overall organizational performance and increasing nurses' job security. This study aimed to explore how nurses perceive their psychological empowerment, work engagement, and job insecurity. Further, to investigate whether nurses' perception of psychological empowerment is related to their work engagement and job insecurity. Methods: A descriptive correlational research design was conducted using a convenience sample of nurses (N = 400) working in Damanhur educational hospital, Egypt. Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and Job Insecurity Inventory proved valid and reliable to measure study variables.Results: The present study revealed that nurses experienced high psychological empowerment and work engagement and perceive a lower level of job insecurity. A significant positive correlation was found between nurses' perception of psychological empowerment and their work engagement. On the contrary, Job Insecurity was negatively correlated with each of psychological empowerment and work engagement (p < .001). In addition, psychological empowerment and work engagement can significantly predict 6.6%, and 9.3% of job insecurity respectively where the regression model is significant (p < .001). Conclusions: Nurses perceived their work environment as empowering and their work as challenging and stimulating, rending their competence, so they psychologically attached to and engaged in work and feel less job insecurity. Recommendations: Creating an atmosphere of trust and empowering nurses psychologically is inevitable. Hospital managers can adopt strategies that facilitate nurses' engagement and reduce the levels of job insecurity. Positive empowering work climate, social support, and nurse managers leadership styles are factors that foster work engagement and job security.

Exploración de la influencia del empoderamiento psicológico en el compromiso laboral entre los empleados que trabajan en organizaciones basadas en el conocimiento: un análisis intermedio del silencio del empleado.

“…Study was an empirical endeavor to explore upshot of psychological empowerment, work engagement with mediation of employee silence in public sector organizations. We devised based on previous studies available that psychological empowerment positively and significantly effects work engagement (Hashish et al, 2018;Nawrin, 2016) and study established the same results which are in line with previous studies (Hashish et al, 2018;Nawrin, 2016;Jose & Mampilly, 2014).…”

“…Psychological empowerment enhances level of work engagement among employees in service sector (Hashish et al, 2018). Their findings supported to get benefit of work engagement by increasing psychological empowerment.…”

Association between work‐related psychological empowerment and quality of nursing care among critical care nurses

“…It could lead to reduce work stress of nurses and enhance quality of work life and improve their abilities to provide effective patient safety (Maslach & Leiter, 2016; Sarafis et al, 2016). Abou Hashish et al (2018) revealed that Egyptian nurses endorsed high level of psychological empowerment and work engagement and recognized a lower job insecurity level. Amarneh et al (2021) found that the psychological empowerment had a moderating effect on the relationship between work satisfaction and turnover intention among Jordanian registered nurses (RNs).…”

The Relationship between Empowerment and Organizational Commitment from Nurse’s Perspective in the Ministry of Health Hospitals

“…This finding was supported by several studies, which show that nurses have a moderate or satisfactory level of empowerment [12,14,[20][21][22][23]. Nonetheless, the result is inconsistent with the studies that indicate a high level of empowerment [5,6] or low level of empowerment among nurses [24]. This result might be explained by the hospitals' administration, characterized by a transformational leadership, which was found to be an effective leadership style that empowers the nursing staff.…”

“…In the nursing literature, a study conducted to assess nurses' perception of empowerment revealed that nurses experienced high psychological empowerment [5]. Nurses in this study perceived their work environment as empowering and their work as challenging and stimulating, requiring their competence [5]. Moreover, there are many studies in the literature that assess the relationship between nurses' empowerment and many nursing work-related factors.…”