Sunday, 30 July 2017: 8:30 AM
Anne Mien Regelink, MSc
1Faculty of Clinical Health Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands, Utrecht, Netherlands
Wedela de Lange, MSc
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Irina Poslawsky, PhD
Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Harmieke van Os-Medendorp, PhD
department of Dermatology & Allergology, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, Utrecht, Netherlands
Thóra Hafsteinsdóttir, PhD, MSc, BSc
Nursing Science, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht University and University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Purpose: Post-doctoral nurses have an important role in evidence based nursing. Leadership is described as “the skill of motivating, guiding, and empowering a team towards a socially responsible vision, whereby leadership is a process, entails influence, occurs within a group setting or context, and involves achieving goals that reflect common vision”(1,2) Leadership practices are defined as both leadership skills and knowledge. Transformational leadership is described by Kouzes and Posner, following five leadership practices: “Modelling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Challenging the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Encouraging the Heart”(1). Leadership practices (1) are needed to deal with the complexity of faculty roles, faculty stress, and lack of job satisfaction. Insight into leadership practices of Dutch post-doctoral nurses and the relationship with their job satisfaction and faculty stress is needed to improve the position of nursing research. The psychometric properties of instruments to measure the above mentioned aspects are yet unknown. The main purpose of this study was to identify leadership practices, job satisfaction and faculty stress of Dutch post-doctoral nurses and to investigate the relationship between leadership practices, job satisfaction, and faculty stress. Another, preliminary, purpose was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Dutch Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) (3-5), Job Satisfaction Scale (MMSS) (6), and Faculty Stress Index (FSI) (7,8), in terms of translational validity.Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted to investigate leadership practices of postdoctoral nurses and the association between leadership practices, job satisfaction, and faculty stress, as well as the psychometric properties of the LPI, the MMSS, and FSI in terms of translational validity.
Results: Participants showed considerably strong leadership practices, especially on the domain ‘Motivating others to act’. All the subscales of the MMSS showed moderate satisfaction, with a high satisfaction on the number of responsibilities. Participants experienced the highest faculty stress due to self-expectations. Several significant correlations were found between leadership practices, job satisfaction and faculty stress, measured with Kendall’s tau analysis. Content validity of the LPI, MMSS, and FSI showed items to be relevant (92%, 74.2%, 85,2%, respectively). Internal consistency was excellent (α =0.90, α =0.93, α =0.92, respectively).
Conclusion: Dutch post-doctoral nurses show considerably strong leadership practices. Additional research is needed to identify the impact of leadership on career development and research productivity, and the societal impact of nursing research.
