Psychological empowerment is a motivational concept that encompasses a person's thoughts and perceptions that give a sense of behavior and commitment to the work. Psychological empowerment is widely acknowledged to be associated with nurses' job satisfaction. However, this relationship has been found to be controversial. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and nurses' job satisfaction. The electronic databases CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were utilized to search for relevant studies published from 2001 to 2024. The correlation coefficients were extracted for each eligible study and transformed into Fisher's Z. Then, the pooled effect size (r coefficient) was computed using Fisher's Z and the corresponding standard error. Moreover, I2 was used to assess the heterogeneity of studies. Begg's rank and Egger's test were employed to assess the publication bias. Sensitivity analysis was utilized to measure the robustness of study findings using the one-leave-out approach, and a critical appraisal tool for cross-sectional studies was adopted to assess the quality of included studies. A total of 18 studies were selected for analysis with a total sample of 6,353 nurses from different countries. The included studies ranged from moderate to high quality based on the quality assessment checklist. The pooled effect size for the correlation between psychological empowerment and nurses' job satisfaction was 0.512 (95% confidence interval = 0.406-0.604) with mild-to-moderate heterogeneity. Moreover, the majority of the studies confirmed a positive relationship between the two measured concepts. This study presents evidence indicating that psychological empowerment has a sensible relationship with nurses' job satisfaction. Therefore, nurse administrators should implement tailored strategies to trigger nurses' psychological empowerment, aiming to boost job satisfaction and reduce turnover and burnout. However, additional studies are essential to establish a causal relationship.
Keywords: job; nurses; nursing; psychological empowerment; satisfaction; workplace.
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