The effects of unit charge nurse's empowerment program on nurses' perceptions of empowerment, control of nursing practices and patient safety culture

This study aims to determine the effects of unit charge nurse's empowerment program on perceptions of empowerment, control over the practices, patient safety culture, and the nurses' perception of patient safety culture. The study has as a quasi-experimental design. The study sampling consisted of 38 unit charge nurses working in Mersin City Training and Research Hospital and their 174 service nurses. In this study, 14 hours of theoretical training, 12 hours of group work and 8 hours of individual study were applied to 38 unit charge nurses. The data were collected from unit charge nurses through with Introductory Information Form, Psychological Empowerment Scale, Structural Empowerment Scale, Control Over Nursing Practice Scale and Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Data from service nurses were collected through Introductory Information Form and Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Variance Analysis, Friedman Analysis, t test and Mann Whitney U test were used for repeated measurements. For unit charge nurses, total structural empowerment score, formal power and informal power mean scores of the Structural Empowerment sub-scales, competence and meaning mean scores of the Psychological Empowerment sub-scale, and Control Over Nursing Practice Scale mean scores were found statistically higher in the 3rd evaluation after the implementation of the program (p<0.05). The Team Work in the Units sub-dimension of positive response percentage was found to be significantly higher in the 3rd evaluation (p<0.05). It was found that the empowerment program increased the number of incidents reported in both the unit charge nurses and the service nurses (p<0.05). In the study, the program applied to the unit charge nurses was found to be effective in control over nursing practice, structural and psychological empowerment. Based on the findings of the study, it can be suggested that such retrofit programs should be implemented to include nurses who work together with the nurses who are unit charge nurses. Key Words: Nursing, empowerment program, patient safety culture, unit charge nurse