Background: Shared governance is an environment where professional nurses have the legitimate authority to make decisions about practice, standards, policies, and procedures. It's evident that shared governance enhances professional nursing practice, empowerment, communication, professional collaboration, a positive work environment and quality decision making. Aim: The present study aimed to examine the relationship between perception of shared governance and nurses’ empowerment. Methods: Setting: the study was carried out at Benha and Menoufia University hospitals. Research design: A descriptive correlational design was utilized. Sample consisted of 198 nurse managers and staff nurses. Tools: Data were collected through utilizing two tools, the first consists of two parts, the first part was intended to collect demographic characteristics of the study sample, and the second part was the Hess Index of Professional Nursing Governance to assess the nurses’ perceptions of shared governance. The second tool was job empowerment questionnaire to measure level of nurses' job empowerment. Results: Findings showed that the result revealed that the total mean score was 88.9±3.75, indicative of traditional governance. Nurses working in critical care unit and operating room have highest mean scores of shared governance (92.4±2.02 and 91.5±4.72) compared to nurses who are working in other units in Menoufia and Benha University Hospital respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between nurses' perception of shared governance and their overall job empowerment. Conclusion: it was conconclude that, the total mean score on Index professional nursing Governance scale in Benha and Menoufia University Hospitals was indicative of traditional governance and there was a significant positive correlations between total nurses' perception of shared governance and their job empowerment. Recommendations: Top manager should play an important role to support the presence of staff nurses at all levels of decision making that positively affects their job empowerment. |
