Empowerment of nurses

study of some factors involved

Abstract

Introduction

Empowerment is a process that results in personal and professional empowerment, in the form of acquisition of skills, motivation, satisfaction and decision making. It is linked to professional autonomy and will be materialized in autonomous decisions.

Objectives

To identify the sociodemographic, socio-professional and of formative context variables that influence the empowerment of nurses.

Materials and methods

A quantitative, descriptive analytical and correlational study with a non-probabilistic sample of 240 nurses. Data sample from June 2014 to December 2014, with implementation of an instrument composed of a professional and socio- demographicquestionnaire: "Perceptions of Empowerment in Midwifery Scale" (Mathews, Scott and Gallagher) and the scale of motivation to professional exercise.

Results

Nurses involved in this survey were aged between 26 and 66 years old. Most of them had a bond, for an indefinite period of time, with the institution to which they were working. They showed good perception on the Empowerment ranging between 50% in the organizational recognition and 100% in recognition by peers. Younger nurses have a better perception of Empowerment in organizational and global recognition by peers, whereas older Nurses have a better perception of Empowerment in the personal dimension. Nurses with master's degree and doctoral studies have a lower perception on the multidimensional scale of recognition by peers and organizational recognition. 40% of nurses that participated in this study were very motivated.

Conclusions

From the results we can conclude that more motivated and more trained nurses show better perception of Empowerment and consequently have greater power of decision.