The Effect of Empowerment And Self-Efficacy On Employees’ Perceptions Of Quality Of Care

Abstract

Background: Empowerment in work palace denotes to better decision making power which enable the worker to have greater control of their jobs. In conventional organizational structures, functioning of the organization revolve around the designing of the set rules and methods. It was though that if organization makes employees obligatory to follow such structures the effectiveness and efficiency may improve. However, later, researchers found out that by fitting employees to the specific job structures, organizations lose their potential as well as performance because employees creativity and innovation got restricted. Therefore, conventional practices may not be suitable for operating in complex and dynamic healthcare environment. To achieve organizational goals with more efficiently, employee empowerment to some extent is in need because independence that comes with empowerment encourages employees to voice their opinions that benefit healthcare organizations in uplifting the patient safety and quality of care they offer. Therefore, study intends to assess the state of employees’ empowerment in public hospitals located in Al Qassim region, Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the study intends to explore the effect on employee’s empowerment has on employee’s perceptions of quality of care and patient safety. Methods Using a cross-sectional research design, the study collected data from 119 employees working in different public hospitals of Al Qassim region. The online questionnaire consists of 30 questionnaire items, was developed using Google Doc to address the research questions of the study. Results The healthcare employees responded to their demographic characteristics, empowerment, self-efficacy, and quality of care have been improvising in the facility. This finding showed that the respondents are empowered to make decisions and are better at performing their given jobs. Furthermore, the outcome of the study exhibited that employee empowerment is associated with respondents’ perceptions of quality care and patient safety. The results from the study may also help healthcare administrators and policy makers to understand the current level of employee empowerment and self-efficacy. The findings can immensely help healthcare administrators and policymakers to design policies and strategies to improve the quality of care in Saudi health organizations Conclusion The study explores the issue of empowerment in the context of Saudi public healthcare hospitals. It shows that in healthcare workers of Saudi Hospitals located in Al Qassim region believe that they possess certain decision-making authority to perform their jobs. The study also shows that the respondents think that their organizations deliver quality of care and are concerned about patient safety.