Nurses' Cross-Border Work Intentions Driven by Psychological Empowerment: A Cross-Sectional Study

Area of Science:

• Nursing Workforce Mobility
• Psychological Empowerment
• Cross-Border Healthcare

Background:

• Globalization necessitates understanding factors influencing international nurse migration.
• Psychological empowerment is a key intrinsic factor in nurses' decisions to work abroad.

Purpose of the Study:

• Identify distinct psychological empowerment profiles among nurses.
• Examine factors associated with these profiles.
• Analyze the relationship between empowerment profiles and intention for cross-border nursing work.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional multicenter study with 3671 nurses in Guangdong Province.
• Latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify empowerment profiles.
• Questionnaires assessed sociodemographics, psychological empowerment, and cross-border work intention.

Main Results:

• Three empowerment profiles identified: core-driven (16.94%), adaptive (70.42%), and constrained (12.64%).
• Nurses in the constrained profile often had lower salaries and intermediate titles.
• Higher psychological empowerment correlated with increased cross-border work intention, with the core-driven profile showing the highest intention (50.6%).

Conclusions:

• Psychological empowerment positively impacts nurses' cross-border work intentions.
• Divergent motivational priorities exist across empowerment profiles, influencing mobility decisions.
• Subgroup-specific strategies are essential for managing nursing workforce mobility and stability.