Job demands and resources as antecedents of work engagement:a diagnostic survey of nursing practitioners

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Health care is a key factor in the general health and wellbeing of any society. At the centreof any well-functioning healthcare system is sufficient, engaged and competent nursing staff.Access to proper health care is reliant on sufficient nursing staff levels, but unfortunately theglobal scarcity of nursing staff is proving to be a big challenge to the quality and servicedelivery that public and private healthcare organisations are providing. One of the manycontributing factors to the shortage of nursing staff is the global challenge of an agingnursing staff population. At a time of widespread concern about nursing shortages and anageing nursing workforce globally, human resources functions should pay increasingattention to addressing the shortage of nursing staff. Although attracting individuals to thenursing profession will increase the nursing pool, the engagement (and consequentlyretention) of current nursing staff is crucial to ensure a sustainable nursing workforce, and asa result, a sustainable healthcare system. The purpose of this study therefore included adiagnosis of the current state of work engagement of nursing practitioners, with the JobDemands and Resources model as diagnostic model, in an attempt to identify theantecedents that significantly contribute to the engagement of nursing practitioners.The data analysis techniques that were applied in this study included item analysis,correlation analysis, hierarchical multiple regression analysis, PLS analysis and ANOVA.While the overall level of work engagement of nursing practitioners in the sample might nothave been as low as had been envisioned, there are clearly deficiencies that need to beaddressed. In terms of job resources, the factors that were found to be below optimumlevels, and warrants intervention, included remuneration, participation, career possibilities,variety at work, independence at work, opportunities to learn, and information. The jobresources communication, contact possibilities, relationships with colleagues andrelationship with supervisor yielded acceptable mean scores and as a result no particularinterventions were proposed for these variables. In terms of job demands, all job demandswere reported to be at unacceptably high levels; however, no correlation between pace andamount of work and work engagement was confirmed. As a result, practicalrecommendations were built around these job demands and resources which anticipateincreasing the work engagement of nursing practitioners and thereby partially addressing thegreater problem of nursing shortages.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University