Workplace empowerment, incivility, and burnout: impact on staff nurse recruitment and retention outcomes.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to examine the influence of empowering work conditions and workplace incivility on nurses' experiences of burnout and important nurse retention factors identified in the literature.


BACKGROUND
A major cause of turnover among nurses is related to unsatisfying workplaces. Recently, there have been numerous anecdotal reports of uncivil behaviour in health care settings.


METHODS
We examined the impact of workplace empowerment, supervisor and coworker incivility, and burnout on three employee retention outcomes: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions in a sample of 612 Canadian staff nurses.


RESULTS
Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses revealed that empowerment, workplace incivility, and burnout explained significant variance in all three retention factors: job satisfaction (R(2) = 0.46), organizational commitment (R(2) = 0.29) and turnover intentions (R(2) = 0.28). Empowerment, supervisor incivility, and cynicism most strongly predicted job dissatisfaction and low commitment (P < 0.001), whereas emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and supervisor incivility most strongly predicted turnover intentions.


CONCLUSIONS
In our study, nurses' perceptions of empowerment, supervisor incivility, and cynicism were strongly related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions.


CONCLUSIONS
Managerial strategies that empower nurses for professional practice may be helpful in preventing workplace incivility, and ultimately, burnout.
Spence Laschinger
Heather K
HK
Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. hkl@uwo.ca
Leiter
Michael
M
Day
Arla
A
Gilin
Debra
D
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002055:Burnout, Professional; D002170:Canada; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003625:Data Collection; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010560:Personnel Selection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010563:Personnel Turnover / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011287:Prejudice; D011594:Psychometrics; D012931:Social Environment; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology