title: Nurses' perceived work-related empowerment in Lithuanian context.
abstract: STUDY'S RATIONALE: Empowerment is widely used within the nursing literature in different countries, but perceived empowerment of Lithuanian nurses has not been studied before. There is a lack of research which has analysed nurses' views and feelings of empowerment.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to describe the perception of Lithuanian nurses' work-related empowerment. The study describes how empowered the nurses felt in their work and how background factors were related to empowerment.
  
  
  METHODS
  The permission to use the questionnaire was given by copyright holders. The questionnaire was approved by the Ethics Committee. RESEARCH METHODS AND INSTRUMENT: The data were collected using a structured questionnaire comprised of two parts: the background questions and the Work Empowerment Questionnaire divided into three areas: verbal, behavioural, and outcome empowerment. The data were analysed statistically using SPSS, and Microsoft Excel programs. The descriptive statistics, non-parametric tests and Spearman correlations were conducted. The sample consisted of 212 participants.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The nurses experienced strong general empowerment (mean 7.9; max 10.0). They were more confident in their abilities to perform actions related to behavioural (mean 8.3) and verbal (mean 8.0) empowerment, and less confident in outcome (mean 7.3) empowerment. All aspects of empowerment were closely related to each other (p ≤ 0.001). Several significant relations were found between the aspects of empowerment and the background variables.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Work Empowerment Questionnaire used in the study was originally developed in Canada. Differences in language, culture, health care organizations, and nursing practice may affect the validity of translated questionnaire in Baltic context.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To prepare nurses for roles in which they may successfully exercise the power to create change, they need experience the process of empowerment during their education, and experience later supportive management.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, Klaipeda University, Klaipeda, Lithuania. marijatrush@gmail.com
authors.forename: Marija
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trus
authors.forename: Tarja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suominen
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Doran
authors.forename: Arturas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Razbadauskas
mesh_terms: D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006801:Humans; D008097:Lithuania; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D011209:Power, Psychological