Disentangling the relationships between staff nurses' workplace empowerment and job satisfaction.

AIM: The primary aim of this study was to examine the relationships between structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and job satisfaction among staff nurses, after controlling for their leaders' use of empowering behaviours. BACKGROUND: Nurses' job satisfaction is a critical factor in health-care organisations because of its association with nurse turnover and quality of patient care. Nurses continue to report high levels of job dissatisfaction. METHODS: Cross-sectional data for 1007 Canadian staff nurses were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression. RESULTS: Structural empowerment was the strongest independent predictor of job satisfaction, followed by leader empowering behaviours and psychological empowerment. After accounting for the effects of structural empowerment and leader empowering behaviours, the four dimensions of psychological empowerment showed only small independent effects on job satisfaction. Psychological empowerment did not mediate the effects of structural empowerment on job satisfaction. CONCLUSION: Nurses' job satisfaction is most influenced by their access to organisational empowerment structures. Leader empowering behaviours, structural empowerment, and psychological empowerment, operating together, enhance nurses' job satisfaction. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse leaders should use a variety of empowerment strategies that are important to nurses' job satisfaction and potentially to the quality of patient care and nurse turnover.

Testing the effects of an empowerment-based leadership development programme: part 2 - staff outcomes.

AIM: To determine if nurse leaders' attendance at a leadership development programme based on an empowerment framework would increase staff perceptions of organisational support and organisational commitment. BACKGROUND: Leadership empowering behaviours are teachable relational competencies that have been associated with quality leader-staff relationships and positive staff outcomes. METHODS: A quasi-experimental, pre-test-post-test design was used to compare perceptions of staff whose leaders participated in a year-long leadership programme with staff of similar leaders who did not attend the programme. A series of multiple regression analyses were used to test the conceptual model of programme effects. RESULTS: Leaders' programme participation was directly associated with greater staff organisational commitment 1 year after the programme. Both programme attendance and leader-empowering behaviours were found to act as independent catalysts for staff empowerment, with structural empowerment partially mediating the effects of leader empowering behaviours on organisational commitment. CONCLUSIONS: Leader participation in a development programme based on an empowerment framework may be an important means of increasing staff organisational commitment, a key predictor of staff turnover. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSE MANAGEMENT: Leadership development programmes should emphasize relational competencies, including leader empowering behaviours, given their potential for enhancing organisational commitment.

Testing the effects of an empowerment-based leadership development programme: part 1 - leader outcomes.

AIM: To determine if a leadership development programme based on an empowerment framework significantly increased leaders' use of empowering behaviours. BACKGROUND: Leadership programmes are effective ways to prepare nurse leaders for their complex roles. Relational competencies, such as leader empowering behaviours, are associated with improved leader, staff and practice environment outcomes. METHODS: A quasi-experimental, pre-test-post-test design was used to compare perceptions and self-reported behaviours of leaders who participated in a year-long leadership programme with those of similar leaders who did not attend the programme. Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate a conceptual framework of leader empowerment. RESULTS: The leadership programme was directly associated with leaders' perceptions of using more empowering behaviours. Leader empowering behaviours were also associated with feelings of being structurally empowered, mediated through feelings of being psychologically empowered, although the source of empowerment needs further investigation. CONCLUSIONS: Leaders' use of empowering behaviours can be increased through focused training and through a workplace empowerment process. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSE MANAGEMENT: Leader empowering behaviours have been shown to be associated with more engaged staff and healthier work environments. Based on study results, we suggest that these behaviours are teachable, and they should be emphasized in leadership development programmes.

Perceptions of sexual partner safety.

BACKGROUND: Many individuals select sexual partners based on assumed partner STI/HIV safety, yet few studies have investigated how these assumptions are formed. The objective of this research was to determine the extent to which partner safety beliefs were used to evaluate partner safety, and whether these beliefs influenced perceptions of personal STI/HIV risk. METHODS: Participants (n = 317) recruited from an STI clinic completed a structured self-report questionnaire. A Partner Safety Beliefs Scale (PSBS) was developed to determine the factors that most influenced perceived partner safety. Exploratory factor analysis showed that a single factor accounted for 46% of the variance in the PSBS; with an internal consistency of 0.92. Linear regression was used to determine factors predictive of perceived personal STI/HIV risk. RESULTS: Participants endorsed statements indicating that knowing or trusting a sexual partner influences their beliefs about their partner's safety. Linear regression analysis indicated that education, income, number of sexual partners, and PSBS scores were significant predictors of perceived personal STI/HIV risk. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicate that many individuals are relying on partner attributes and relationship characteristics when assessing the STI/HIV status of a sexual partner, and that this reliance is associated with a decreased perception of personal STI/HIV risk. Prevention campaigns need to acknowledge that people are likely to evaluate sexual partners whom they know and trust as safe. Dispelling erroneous beliefs about the ability to select safe partners is needed to promote safer sexual behavior.

Examining how contexts shape young children's perspectives of health.

BACKGROUND: We know that the social conditions in which children live exert a strong influence on their health; yet, we do not know how children's experience of these conditions of daily life shape their perspectives of health. METHODS: Through ethnographic research methods, the first author spent 1 year with the 14 6-year-old children involved in this research and examined how the contexts of daily life influenced the children's perspectives of health. The children involved in this study all lived in a neighbourhood characterized as having a complex of mid to high range of neighbourhood factors associated with vulnerability. RESULTS: The findings demonstrate that the children were able to articulate the health requirements of physical activity and healthy eating that supports their health. However, there was a disparity between the children's health knowledge, their perceptions and their contextual realities in relation to health. Children spoke of concerns for their physical safety within their schools and neighbourhoods; their lack of free range of play, and that they had few opportunities to play with or get to know neighbourhood friends. CONCLUSION: Professionals in contact with children and families who live in challenging social conditions need to be aware of how these contexts shape children's understanding of their own health potential.

Peer sexual harassment: a barrier to the health of adolescent females?

Despite increasing societal concern about sexual harassment in the workplace and in academia, to date sexual harassment has been neglected by nurses as a health issue among adolescents. Sexual harassment includes a wide range of unwelcome sexually oriented and gender-offensive behaviours that contribute to a hostile environment. Although the research is limited and lacking in rigour, early findings, along with evidence abstracted from the workplace-harassment and stress and coping literature, suggest that peer sexual harassment may adversely affect young women's mental and physical health, health-related behaviours, and future relationships. The author makes recommendations for further sexual-harassment research, specific to the adolescent population, based on a conceptual framework derived from the transactional stress and coping literature.