Abstract
ABSTRACTThis study evaluated whether a participatory action research intervention with nursing staff on acute care older people National Health Service wards in the United Kingdom was effective for increasing work engagement. Mediation analyses between job resources (social support, influence in decision-making), job demands, work-related needs (autonomy, competence, relatedness), and work engagement explored the presumed psychological mechanisms underlying the intervention. A non-randomized, matched control group, pretest, post-test design involved three intervention and five control wards. A significant decrease in relatedness, and a borderline significant decrease in competence, was observed in the intervention group compared to the control group, with no effect on work engagement (N = 45). Work-related needs mediated between resources and work engagement, supporting the job demands-resources model and self-determination theory as an underlying explanatory theory. Intervention implementation was difficult, highlighting the need for participant and organizational readiness for change, and strong management support. This is the first known study to apply participatory techniques to increase work engagement in nursing staff and explore the underlying explanatory psychological mechanisms, offering a novel means of taking work engagement research forward. Crucially, it highlights the challenges involved in intervention research and the importance of including evaluations of intervention implementation alongside statistical evaluations to avoid erroneous conclusions.
Highlights
Work engagement interventions have so far focused on the individual employee, whether through group (e.g., Van Berkel, Boot, Proper, Bongers, & van der Beek, 2014; Vuori, ToppinenTanner, & Mutanen, 2012), online (e.g., Imamura et al, 2015; Ouweneel, Le Blanc, & Schaufeli, 2013), or one-to-one, face-toface programmes (e.g., Hengel, Joling, Proper, Blatter, & Bongers, 2012; for a systematic review and meta-analysis, see Knight, Patterson, & Dawson, 2016)
We propose that the intervention described here will work through the mediating potential of workrelated needs and that the job resources reflected in the principles of our intervention, social support and influence in decision-making, will increase work engagement through the satisfaction of these needs (Figure 1)
Results of repeated measures ANOVA based on a matched sample (N = 45) were unexpected; there was a significant difference between intervention and control groups across time for the work-related basic need, relatedness, and a borderline significant difference for competence, with an increase in both being observed for the control group and a decrease for the intervention group
Summary
Work engagement interventions have so far focused on the individual employee, whether through group (e.g., Van Berkel, Boot, Proper, Bongers, & van der Beek, 2014; Vuori, ToppinenTanner, & Mutanen, 2012), online (e.g., Imamura et al, 2015; Ouweneel, Le Blanc, & Schaufeli, 2013), or one-to-one, face-toface programmes (e.g., Hengel, Joling, Proper, Blatter, & Bongers, 2012; for a systematic review and meta-analysis, see Knight, Patterson, & Dawson, 2016). We focus on the underlying psychological mechanisms theorized to explain the presumed effects of the intervention. Testing the mediating role of work-related needs within the context of an intervention extends recent work identifying positive relationships between resources, needs, and work engagement (Van den Broeck, Ferris, Chang, & Rosen, 2016). In this introduction, we first describe the context of the intervention before reviewing work engagement and interventions to increase work engagement. We move on to discuss participatory interventions in particular, and SDT as a mediating mechanism underlying our intervention
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