The influence of work environment and structural empowerment on job satisfaction among Thai nurses

Thailand, like many other countries, is experiencing a shortage of nurses. The shortage has an impact on both patients (i.e. falls and mortality) and nurses (i.e. burnout and dissatisfaction). Retaining current nurses is the best option for addressing the shortage of nurses in Thailand by improving their job satisfaction. This study was conducted to examine whether the Nursing Worklife Model (NWL Model) proposed by Laschinger (2008) can explain job satisfaction among Thai nurses.;Data were collected from 426 registered nurses in 2 public hospitals in Thailand. The single composite indicator structural equation model (CISE) with adjustment for measurement errors was used to analyze the data. Findings reveal that work environment explained 22% of job satisfaction. Adding structural empowerment increased the explanatory power of job satisfaction to about 43%. However, fit indices were weak in both models. All relationships in the models were as hypothesized except for the path from the foundation of the nursing model of care to staffing and resources adequacy which was in the hypothesized direction but not statistically significant. Two subscales of the Practice Environment Scale-Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI), participation in hospital affairs and foundation of the nursing model of care, each contained an item that poorly explained the construct of the subscale.;This study supports that work environment and structural empowerment are predictors of job satisfaction among hospital nurses. Applying the NWL Model for job satisfaction does not have a good fit with Thai nurses. To better explain job satisfaction among Thai nurses, modification of the NWL Model is needed by incorporating other confounding factors. Findings suggest further investigation of the construct validity of the work environment instrument. As leadership is a key to improve job satisfaction, actionable solutions should be focused on the roles of leadership. Inclusion of structural empowerment increases explanatory to job satisfaction suggests that further research may further explore the model by focusing on the effect of structural empowerment on job satisfaction alone.