Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Relationship between Work Empowerment and Work Stress Perceived by Nurses at Long-term care Facilities in Taipei City
I. Chuan Li, DNS, Nursing, Institute of Community Health Nursing, National Yang-ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
| Learning Objective #1: to understand that both work empowerment and psychological empowerment are significantly associated with total work stress among nurses in long-term care facilities in Taiwan.
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| Learning Objective #2: understand some significant predictors of work stress among nurses in long-term care facilities in Taiwan are. |
The role of nurses in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) is not clear because the work tasks of these nurses are not clearly identified by the current regulations and this situation results in work stress in Taiwan. If employees are able to perceive themselves to be empowered about their work, their work stress can be decreased. Very few studies have been investigated the relationship between work empowerment and work stress among nurses at LTCFs. We used a cross-sectional design to understand the relationship between work empowerment, including both organizational and psychological empowerment, and work stress among nurses at LTCFs in Taiwan. A total of 178 nurses participated in the study. Organizational empowerment measures included a range of components made up of formal power, informal power and perceived access to the work empowerment structures of opportunity, information, support and resources. Psychological empowerment measures included components made up of meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. The results of this study showed that the average age of the subjects was 35.47 years and 56.2% of them had less than two years work experience. It was further indicated that there was a moderate level of organizational and a slightly higher level of psychological empowerment among the nurses studied. A moderate level of work stress (M: 72.27, SD: 14.43) was found among the subjects. Both work empowerment and psychological empowerment were significantly associated with total work stress (r = -0.44 and r = -0.46, p < 0.001, respectively). The age, length of time that the subject had worked at the facility, resources and impact variables were significant predictors of job satisfaction (R2=.345, F=12.24, p < 0.001). Based on these results, it is clear that nurses need to be provided with more resources within their work environment; such improvements would result in subsequent important impacts on their work.