Are you feeling empowered in your nursing career? Do you understand the concept of empowerment in nursing? Empowerment in the nursing profession is key to positive patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, nurse satisfaction, and nursing retention.
What is a concept analysis? Concept analysis is a scientific method of exploring and understanding the meaning and purpose of a concept. According to the Encyclopedia of Nursing Research (Fitzgerald, 2018), the goal of a concept analysis is to define and operationalize concepts in the interest of research, education, and practice. Concept analyses are usually done and used by researchers. I have included the analysis of the concept of empowerment here in order for you to improve your understanding of the characteristics that define empowerment and reflect on your own thoughts about the meaning and how it applies to your practice.
A review of the literature was done by two doctoral (McCarthy & Freeman, 2008) prepared nurses the concepts of empowerment and implications for nurses. They identified the following three types of empowerment: Community, individual, and organizational. Based on their research, they identified collaboration, autonomy, accountability, access to resources, shared governance, respectful and trusting relationships as concepts of empowerment. In the nursing profession, empowerment is also creates an environment where nurses can practice to their highest potential.
In this increasingly complex healthcare environment, nurses should ensure that their voices are heard at the bedside, at organizational policy and decision-making level, and in the political policy and decision-making process. Empowering nurses leads to greater job satisfaction, improved retention, increased patient satisfaction, better patient outcomes, and healthy work environments. With such an emphasis on the importance of empowered nurses.
