ABSTRACT
Objective: To investigate the situation of work engagement among nurses in tertiary level 1st general hospitals and evaluated potential associations between psychological contract, psychological capital, and work Engagement. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used. 320 nurses from three tertiary level 1st general hospitals in Jinan was included. Data were gathered with Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) , Psychological Capital Questionnaire, and Psychological Contract Questionnaire. Possible predictors of work engagement were analyzed using ANOVA and multivariate linear regression models with SPSS 20.0. Results: A total of 320 questionnaires were enrolled and 282 questionnaires were returned, with a response rate of 88.1%. The total mean (SD) score was 3.79 (0.91) for work engagement, 3.66 (0.72) for psychological contract and 4.39 (0.63) for psychological capital. One-way analysis of variance and post-hoc analysis showed that there was significant difference in work engagement among nurses of different gender (P<0.05) , education level (P<0.05) , department (P<0.01) and professional title (P<0.05) . Pearson correlation analysis showed that psychological contract positively associated with work engagement (r=0.253, P<0.01) and psychological capital (r=0.198, P<0.01) , and psychological capital positively associated with work engagement (r=0.575, P<0.01) . Results of multiple hierarchical regression analysis showed that work department, gender, educational background, professional title, hope, optimism and team obligation predicted work engagement and they accounted for 42.8% of the variance in work engagement. Conclusion: The work engagement of nurses is at a medium level. Work engagement of nurses is influenced by gender, professional title, educational level and department; Both psychological contract and psychological capital of nurses positively correlated with work engagement.
