Perceived Sense of Agency and Patient Care Practices in Nurses: Role of Risk and Protective Factors

Abstract

This research examined the role of perceived sense of agency in predicting patient care practices among nurses in Pakistan. Additionally, the study also investigated the moderating role of self-compassion, occupational hardiness, and perceived job stress in the relationship between perceived sense of agency and patient care practices. Translated Urdu versions of Sense of Agency Scale (Tapal et al., 2017), Occupational Hardiness Questionnaire (Moreno-Jiménez et al., 2014), Self-Compassion Scale (Imtiaz, 2012), Perceived Stress Scale (Luna et al., 2012) and The Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 (Abdullah et al., 2017) were used to assess study variables. A purposive sampling method was employed to select 403 female nurses from hospitals of Faisalabad and Rawalpindi, with age range of participants from 20 to 55 years. Results of the study showed that perceived sense of agency, self-compassion, and occupational hardiness positively predicted patient care practices whereas perceived job stress negatively predicted patient care practices in nurses. Results also reveal that self compassion and occupational hardiness play a protective role and enhance the relationship between perceived sense of agency and patient care practices. Conversely, perceived job stress was a risk factor as it was found to weaken the association between perceived sense of agency and patient care practices. Significant group differences were also found between work experience, marital status and pay scale in nurses. Findings showed that nurses with more work experience had high occupational hardiness and better patient care practices as compared to nurses with less work experience. The result also showed that unmarried nurses had high self-compassion, less perceived job stress and better patient care practices as compared to married nurses. The findings also showed that nurses on high pay scale had more perceived sense of agency, high self compassion, high occupational hardiness and better patient care practices as compared to nurses on low pay scale.