A Scoping Review of the Predictors of the Work Engagement of Nurses in the Workplace and Methodological Limitations of Existing Evidence

Abstract

Abstract Recently, there has been growing interest among policymakers about the importance of increasing the engagement of nurses in their work, as this can boost their productivity and performance as well as improve the quality of health care services. This encouraged several researchers to examine the predictors of the engagement of nurses in their work. Despite the emerging nature of this research field, there is a lack of scoping reviews that explore the scope of evidence in this research area. Further, there is a limited understanding of the methodological limitations of studies in this research field. This can be valuable, as it can guide future research on how to improve the methods used. Therefore, this study aims to explore the scope of evidence on the key predictors of the engagement of nurses in their work, identify the methodological limitations of research in this research area, and provide recommendations for future research. A scoping review was used. This scoping review used the Arksey & O'Malley (2005) framework as a guide. This scoping review employed six databases in order to identify the relevant research studies, including Science Direct, Elsevier, Scopus, JSTOR, PubMed, and Web of Science. The scoping research found that the engagement of nurses is influenced by a wide range of factors, including leadership style, organisational and supervisory support, organisational justice and fairness, rewards and recognition, job characteristics, age, trust and autonomy, and personal resources. Several methodological limitations were found in the available literature, including limited longitudinal studies, the lack of qualitative studies, the limited study of the moderators and mediators, the failure to control for confounding factors, the lack of studies with random sampling, the limited studies from a wide range of countries (South America, Africa, Russia, etc.), the lack of agreement on the measures used, and the failure to take gender differences into account. Researchers are recommended to conduct studies with a longitudinal or qualitative design, study the effect of moderators and mediators on the relationship, control for confounding factors, use random sampling, use the Core Outcome Sets (COS), and take gender differences into account. Keywords: engagement, nurses, healthcare, motivation, healthcare.