Decisional involvement: actual and preferred involvement in decision-making among registered nurses

Enhancing nurse involvement in decision-making is a starting point in addressing the nursing shortage, recruitment, and retention. The purpose of this descriptive comparative secondary data analysis was to describe the level of registered nurses' actual and preferred decisional involvement (DI) in two studies carried out during 2004 and 2010 and to describe the difference in the levels of actual and preferred DI between the 2004 study (N = 290) and the 2010 (N = 111) study in a Midwestern medical center after a new shared governance structure was implemented. In the 2004 and 2010 studies, there were statistically significant differences between actual and preferred levels of DI. A statistically significant decrease in means occurred in actual and preferred DI in 2010 as compared with that in 2004. A concerted effort must be made by nursing leaders to enhance DI, offer adequate resources, promote learning and growth, and recognize nursing contributions within a shared governance.