Research on the correlations of structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and professional identity of clinical nurses

Abstract

Objective To investigate the status of clinical nurses′ professional identity, structural empowerment and psychological empowerment, analyze the correlation between professional identity and structural empowerment and psychological empowerment, and establish a multiple stepwise regression model to discuss the dependence between professional identity and structural empowerment and psychological empowerment in clinical nurses. Methods A total of 1 008 clinical nurses from Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Nanjing University were selected as the subject by using the convenience sampling method. The General Information Questionnaire, Professional Identity Scale, Conditions of Work Effectiveness Scale, and Psychological Empowerment Scale were used to questionnaire. Results The professional identity of nurses was at medium level (104.49±19.54), the total scores of structural and psychological empowerment of nurses were 60.09±13.49 and 42.59±7.31. Correlation analysis showed that the total score of professional identity of clinical nurses was positively correlated with the total score of structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and theirs dimensions (r values were 0.436-0.715, P<0.01). Multivariate stepwise regression results showed that the nurse working years, health status self-assessment, formal empowerment, informal empowerment, work meaning, self-efficacy, work influence was the main influencing factors of nurses professional identity, which explained 60.5% of the total variation. Conclusions Nursing managers should focus on the professional identity of clinical nurses, by optimizing the management organizational structure and pay attention to the perception of empowerment behavior to improve the comprehensive empowerment level, so as to enhance the professional identity of nurses. Key words: Nurses; Professional identity; Structural empowerment; Psychological empowerment