Background and Objectives: Numerous studies associated with manager nurses’ conduct and empowerment of nursing staff have revealed that the managers can influence their personnel and enhance job satisfaction, commitment, responsibitity, efficiency, and service quality by impressive behavior. The goal of this study is to evaluate managerial skills retraining of manager nurses on empowerment of nursing staff in Tehran in 2004.
Materials and Methods: This quasi- experimental study was carried out on 111 nursing staff. Before intervention empowerment of nursing staff was evaluated through the questionnaire whose validity and reliability had been confirmed in advance. Then the retraining program was performed for the whole nursing managers (n=20) of the hospital for 3 consecutive months. The managers were advised to use their learning in decision making policy and behavior during the training period and one month after the completion of the training, and consulting team accompanied them through the whole process. One month after completion of training period empowerment of the staff was investigated again. The data were classified and analysed through descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and analytical statistics (paired t-test and analysis of regression).
Results: Seventy three percent (73%) of the nursing staff had moderate ability before intervention and seventy four (74%) had moderate ability after intervention. Mean ability of the staff increased from 96.5± 18 before intervention to 106.9± 16.1 after intervention. Paired t-test indicated a significant difference in ability before and after intervention (P=0.001). Multiple step by step regression analysis showed that precursors of staff empowerment before and after intervention were morale change and healthy environment perception.
Conclusion: The Study revealed that behavior change in managers led to increased skills of nursing staff. It seems that retraining programs consisting of leadership and management skills result in organizational and mental empowerment of nursing staff and improve their professional performance.