Work engagement and associated factors of nurses: a structural equation model

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Management
• Occupational Health

Background:

• Increasing demands on nursing skills and quality necessitate understanding factors influencing nurse engagement.
• High-intensity work environments can lead to burnout and turnover, impacting patient care.
• Work engagement is a key indicator of nursing quality and a predictor of nurse retention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess factors associated with work engagement among nurses in tertiary hospitals.
• To identify predictors of thriving at work, self-efficacy, and leisure crafting in nursing professionals.
• To understand the relationships between these factors and overall work engagement.

Main Methods:

• Convenience sampling of licensed nurses from a tertiary hospital in China.
• Utilized questionnaires to collect data on demographics, thriving at work, work engagement, self-efficacy, and leisure crafting.
• Employed descriptive analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test hypotheses.

Main Results:

• A total of 1,007 valid responses were collected, with an effective response rate of 95.45%.
• Thriving at work (B = 1.157), self-efficacy (B = 0.574), and leisure crafting (B = 0.127) significantly predicted work engagement (P < 0.001).
• The final model explained 80.5% of the variance in nurses' work engagement.

Conclusions:

• Nurses in tertiary hospitals demonstrate a moderately high level of work engagement.
• Thriving at work emerged as the most significant factor influencing nurses' work engagement.
• Self-efficacy and leisure crafting also play crucial roles in fostering work engagement.