[The application in public health nursing of the employee empowerment model and relevant considerations]

Empowerment, rooted in the black civil rights and other civic movements of the 1960s, has greatly impacted thought and theories on health promotion activities, management strategies, and educational reform. Public health nurses are vital facilitators to the introduction and implementation of the empowerment concept in the health care field. Employee empowerment, based on the concept of empowerment, comprises the two domains of ability and power, which may be assessed through psychological and organizational empowerment. This article illustrates the employee empowerment model, the combination of cognitive empowerment model, and its application in public health nursing. The empowering process includes confirming feelings of powerlessness during the dialogue phase; empowerment education and organizational dialogue during the development phase; and collective action for goal-setting during the action phase. This paper also notes issues that should be considered related to model implementation, including new technology of old paradigm, the risk for more disempowered status, and an appropriate methodology for research paradigms. The employee empowerment model presented in this paper may be used as a guide to design empowerment education curricula for public health nurses.