Job Stress, Mentoring, Psychological Empowerment, and Job Satisfaction Among Nursing Faculty

Abstract

The National League for Nursing endorses mentoring throughout nursing faculty’s careers as the method to recruit nurses into academia and improve retention of nursing faculty within the academy. A nationwide sample of 959 full-time nursing faculty completed a descriptive survey comprising a researcher-created demographic questionnaire plus Dreher’s mentoring scale, Gmelch’s faculty stress index, Spreitzer’s psychological empowerment scale, and the National Survey for Postsecondary Faculty’s job satisfaction scale. Results showed that 40% of the sample had a current work mentor. Variables showed significant relationships to job satisfaction ( p < 0.01): mentoring quality (0.229), job stress (–0.568), and psychological empowerment (0.482). Multiple regression results indicated job satisfaction was significantly influenced ( p < 0.01) by the presence of a mentoring relationship, salary, tenure status, psychological empowerment, and job stress. The regression model explained 47% of the variance in job satisfaction for the sample.