Psychological empowerment of health professionals

Abstract

Objective: To assess whether there are differences in psychological empowerment between different health professionals working in a teaching hospital. Method: A comparative, quantitative, and cross-sectional study carried out with 165 professionals selected at random and who worked in a teaching hospital in the inland of the state of São Paulo. The participants were divided into three groups: 1) nurses, 2) physicians, and 3) other professionals (physiotherapists, psychologists, pharmacists, speech therapists, social workers, and nutritionists). For data collection, a form was used to characterize the sample, as well as the Brazilian version of the Psychological Empowerment Instrument. To compare the scores between the three groups, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used, followed by Dunn’ post-test. Results: Nurses, physicians, and other professionals scored 71.4; 69.3, and 71.1 points (p=0.5959), respectively, in the total score of the instrument Conclusion: There are no statistically significant differences in the perception of psychological empowerment of different health professionals.