Evaluatıon of The Relatıonshıp Between Levels Autonomy and Work Engagement of Nurses

ABSTRACT Evaluatıon of The Relatıonshıp Between Levels Autonomy and Work Engagement of Nurses This study was carried out with 281 nurses at Mersin City Hospital between November 2018 and May 2019 in order to evaluate the relation between autonomy and work engagement levels of nurses. Personal Information Form, Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale were used as data collection instruments. SPSS 22.0 package program was used for the analysis and nonparametric tests were used to evaluate the data. The level of significance was accepted as p<0,05. Most of the nurses in the study were female (72%), married (71%), living with their families (71%), bachelor graduated (60%), willingly preferred the nursing profession (67%), working as daytime-shift (80%), and working as service nurse (31%). It was determined that the position of the nurses affected their independent decision making in their professional practices negatively (32%), their autonomic behaviors in the unit were not supported (54.4%), the supported ones were supported by the management nurse of the unit (57,5%) and the least supported by their colleagues (34,5%). As a result; In the study, it was found that the Dedication subscale level of The Utrecht Work Engagement scale was high in the nurses. it was determined that Vigor and Absorption Subscales levels of The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, and the total scores of The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, Strotopy and Autonomy scales were moderate in the nurses. There was a significant positive correlation between work engagement scores and sociotropy and autonomy scores. It was found that autonomy level had more effect on the general and absorption level of work engagement, and that Strotopy level more effect on the Dedication and Vigor level of work engagement. It was found that work engagement scores differed according to some sociodemographic characteristics. It was concluded that autonomy and sociotropy levels were also effective in these differences. Key Words: Nurse, Work, Engagement, Autonomy