Nurses' perceptions of organizational climate and psychological empowerment

This descriptive relational research was done to assess the nurses' perceptions of organizational climate and psychological empowerment and to examine the relationship between two. The study was done at five hospitals with 500 beds in Ankara, including three Ministry of Health and two university hospitals, in a random sample of 237 nurses working for at least six months. Demographic data form, Organizational Climate and Psychological Empowerment Scales were used for data collection. Data was evaluated using IBM SPSS Statistics 23 package program and the mean, standard deviation, number and percentage, median, Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests were used. The relationship between organizational climate and psychological empowerment was examined by Spearman's Rho correlation coefficient. The organizational climate scores were changed between "negative interaction" (x̄=2,69±1,020) and "hierarchy" (x̄=3,63±0,950) subscales, and nurses assessed organizational climate neither positive nor negative. The psychological empowerment score of the nurses showed moderate perception of empowerment (x̄=5,62±0,890), with the highest score in the "meaning" subscale (x̄=6,40±1,045) and the lowest score in the "effect" subscale (x̄=4,34±1,622). The most frequent statement used by nurses was "team work" for positive and "work intensity" for negative work environment. Both organizational climate and psychological empowerment scores were different in terms of age, type of institution, and length of time in nursing. The strongest positive relationship between organizational climate and psychological empowerment was in the "communication" subscale (r=0,403) of organizational climate, while the prominent negative relationship was in "stress" subscale (r=-0,170). According to these findings, some recommendations were suggested for nurses' psychological empowerment and positive organizational climate.