Work Engagement of Nurses in Private Hospitals: A Study of Its Antecedents and Mediators

This study examined the impact of organizational, personal, team, job demand factors and mediating effects of team and affective commitments on nurses' work engagement. Health workers' work engagement has positive effect on patient satisfaction; nurses constitute a major group among health workers. To find reliability of the instruments pilot study was conducted in three hospitals of Kolkata (India) in which 175 nurses participated. In the main study, 504 nurses from five hospitals in Kolkata participated. Correlation, regression analysis and Sobel test was used to find out the relationships. Perceived organizational support, leader-member exchange, team-member exchange, workplace friendship, all relate positively to work engagement. Nursing role stress negatively relates to work engagement. Team commitment positively mediates the relationship between leader-member exchange, team member exchange and workplace friendship with work engagement. Affective commitment positively mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and core self-evaluation with work engagement and negatively mediates the relationship between nursing role stress and work engagement. Result of the study shall be helpful for health care managers to devise appropriate strategies for enhancement of work engagement of nurses.