Effect of Psychological Empowerment on Occupational Stress among Emergency Department Nurses

Abstract

Background & Aims: Emergency department nurses experience a high level of stress due to the nature of their occupation. In order to improve the quality of nursing care, the reduction of nurses’ occupational stress is crucial. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of psychological empowerment on occupational stress among emergency department nurses. Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on 80 emergency department nurses in Ayatollah Kashani and Hajar hospitals of Shahrekord, Iran. The participants were selected using convenience sampling and randomly allocated to intervention (n=40) and control (n=40) groups. For the intervention group, the psychological empowerment program was presented in eight educational, supportive, and counseling workshops. The control group received no intervention. The data were collected using the Osipow Occupational Stress Questionnaire before and one month after the interventions and analyzed by descriptive and analytic statistics in SPSS software (version 21). Results: Before the interventions, the two study groups had no statistically significant difference in the mean scores of occupational stress. After the interventions, the mean score of occupational stress in the intervention group significantly reduced and the mean score of occupational stress was significantly different between the two study groups (P<0.05). Furthermore, the mean changes in occupational stress scores in the intervention group were significantly greater than those reported for the control group (P<0.05). Conclusion: Psychological empowerment reduces occupational stress among emergency department nurses. The results of the present study can be beneficial for hospital managers in order to improve the quality of nursing care.

Keywords

• emergency department
• empowerment
• nurse
• psychological occupational stress