| ObjectivesTo investigate the status of nurses’ work engagement in tertiary level 1st general hospitals; to analyze the influence of demographic variables, organizational justice, emotional intelligence and job stressors on nurses’ work engagement in order to provide implications for nurse managers in implementing targeted interventions to enhance work engagement.MethodsA cross-sectional descriptive study design was adopted and a total of 511 participants were enrolled from four tertiary 1st class general hospitals using multistage sampling. Data were collected with Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9), Organizational Justice Questionnaire, Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) and Job Stressors Scale. SPSS 17.0 was used to conduct statistical analysis, including descriptive analysis, independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.ResultsA total of 565 questionnaires were distributed and 511 complete questionnaires were returned, resulting in a response rate of 90.4%. The detailed information were as follows:1. Respondents had a moderate level of work engagement with the mean (SD) score of 3.82(1.08) and the mean (SD) score for absorption, vigor and dedication were 3.91(1.17),3.83(1.05),3.74(1.31), respectively.2. The total mean (SD) score of perceived organizational justice was 3.55(0.62) and the mean score for the interpersonal justice, informational justice, procedural justice and distributive justice were 3.92(0.62),3.76(0.67),3.62(0.65),2.76(1.03), respectively.3. The total mean (SD) score of nurses’ emotional intelligence was 3.82(0.50) and the mean (SD) score for self emotion appraisal, use of emotions, regulation of emotions and other’s emotional appraisal were 3.96(0.51),3.94(0.55),3.69(0.67), 3.68(0.60), respectively.4. The total mean (SD) score of nurses’ job stressors was 2.30(0.46) and the mean (SD) score for "workload and time allocation", "nursing profession and clinical duty", "working environment and resources", "patients care" and "management and interpersonal relationships" were 2.75(0.71),2.59(0.56),2.31(0.79),2.31(0.41), 1.86(0.52), respectively.5. Results of independent t-test indicated that unmarried nurses scored higher than the married ones (t=2.494, P<0.05). One-way analysis of variance and post-hoc analysis showed that there was significant difference in work engagement among nurses of different education level (F=3.149, P<0.05) and different department (F=14.831, P<0.01). Specially, nurses with diploma scored higher than nurses with bachelor degrees and nurses working in medical and surgical units scored higher than nurses from intensive care unit.6. Pearson correlation analysis showed that both organizational justice and emotional intelligence positively associated with work engagement (r=0.501, P<0.01; r=0.603, P<0.01), and job stress negatively associated with work engagement (r=-0.318,P<0.01).7. Results of multiple hierarchical regression analysis showed that work department, distributive justice, use of emotions, other’s emotion appraisal and "workload and time allocation" predicted work engagement and they accounted for 46.1% of the variance in work engagement.Conclusions1. The work engagement of nurses in tertiary level hospitals is at a medium level and there is space for improvement.2. Work engagement of nurses is influenced by education level, marital status and department. Nurses who are unmarried, have diploma degree and work in medical or surgical unit show better work engagement than nurses who are married, have bachelor degree and work in intensive care unit.3. Both organizational justice and emotional intelligence of nurses positively correlated with work engagement while job stressors negatively correlated with work engagement.4. Predictors of nurses’ work engagement include working in surgical unit, distributive justice, use of emotions, other’s emotion appraisal and workload and time allocation. |
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