Objective: Nurses are subjected to many occupational risks and dangers in their working environment. Empowerment may affect their job safety behaviours positively and contribute to their safety. This study aimed to investigate the effect of nurses' empowerment perceptions on job safety behaviours.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A survey of 377 nurses working in 5 hospitals in Turkey was conducted using the conditions of work effectiveness questionnaire, psychological empowerment instrument, universal precautions compliance scale, and occupational health and safety obligations compliance scale. The relations between the variables were tested using Pearson's correlation and path analysis.
RESULTS: There was a moderate and statistically significant relationship between psychological and structural empowerment and complying with universal safety measures and meeting occupational health and safety obligations. It was also found that an increase of 1 unit on the level of psychological empowerment corresponds to an increase of 0.37 units on the level of universal precautions compliance and to an increase of 0.46 units on the level of occupational health and safety obligations compliance. As such, an increase of 1 unit in structural empowerment corresponds to an increase of 0.53 units on the level of universal precautions compliance and to an increase of 0.36 units (total effect) on the level of occupational health and safety obligations compliance.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings reveal that empowerment is a valuable tool for nurses' positive job safety behaviours.