Relationship between Empowerment and Work Related Stress among Nurse Teachers at Technical Institute

Abstract

Empowerment in the workplace is the process of enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave and take actions, control work and decision-making capabilities in autonomous ways. Organizations that create a working environment can foster the ability and desire of employees to act in autonomous ways which will develop the empowerment sense. Being empowered in the workplace may provide the needed sense of purpose and value that can also alleviate the stressors of the job, or at least make employees contributions seem to outweigh the negative aspects of the work. The present study aimed to identify the relationship between empowerment and work related stress among nurse teachers through: assessing level of work-related stress among nurse teachers, determining sources of empowerment among nurse teachers and finding out the relationship between empowerment and work related stress among nurse teachers. This descriptive, correlational study was conducted at Nursing Technical Health Institute at Imbaba, Giza Governorate which affiliated to General Organization for Teaching Hospitals and Institutes. Sixty five of nurse teachers who available at time of data collection, involved in the study. Data for this study were collected by using two tools namely; Condition of work Empowerment Questionnaire (CWEQ) and Employment Organization Sources of Stressors scale. The result of this study revealed that: • Accesses to empowerment sources ranged as the following: support and resources were the first important component, followed by, information and the least source was opportunities. • About two thirds of nurse teachers were totally empowered. • Access to dimensions of work related stress as the following: work stressor was the highest dimension, followed by role stressor, personal development stressor, organizational climate stressor and the last dimension was interpersonal relation stressor • The majority of nurse teachers were totally stressed. • There were no statistical significant relations at all work stress dimensions and nurse teachers' demographic characteristics except years of experiences and interpersonal relation stressor. • There was highly statistical significant difference between total mean score of attending professional training and courses and different empowerment sources. • There was statistically significant positive correlation between empowerment and work related stress among nurse teachers. The study recommended that: • Provide orientation program for newly nurse teachers to facilitate their access to information about their organization. • Enhance nurse teacher's effective utilization of stress management strategies. • Suggestions for future work:  Psychological empowerment and its' relation to job satisfaction.  Work stress and its' relation to job performance.