Learning Objective #1: Understand more about work related empowerment in the nursing field

Learning Objective #2: Understand more clearly how important it is to carefully plan organisational changes

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This study describes experiences of work empowerment within a multidisciplinary team before and after a staff development project. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire (Irvine et al.) consisting of background variables and questions concerning verbal, behavioral and outcome empowerment. The questionnaire was sent to all members of the multidisciplinary team in one hospital. The data were collected before (n=115) and after the development project (n=111). The data were examined using statistical methods. The multidiscplinary team felt quite strong verbal and behavioral empowerment, but less confident in terms of outcome empowerment. Several factors were found to be associated with the different fields of empowerment and also the changes between two data collections. The multidisciolinary team felt quite strong work empowerment. Experiences of verbal and behavioral emporment were stronger than experiences of outcome empowerment. In the organizational changes the support of staff work empowerment should be considered carefully.