THE IMPACT OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP (TL) ON THE QUALITY OF PATIENT CARE: A SYSTEMATIC APPRAISAL OF THE EVIDENCE

Abstract

Abstract Background: Leadership skills significantly influence the performance of the followers and thus affect the achievement of certain goals. Constructive leadership is crucial in promoting favourable and supportive environments for nurses to be effective and optimize nursing practices that lead to better patient care. Therefore, leadership styles make a substantial contribution in enhancing care provison. Aim: This study aims to review and systematically appraise previously published empirical studies to determine how the transformational nursing leadership style influences the quality of patient care. Methods: A systematic appraisal approach is utilised in this work. This involved a search of various electronic database that included PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Wiley library databases to effectively identify high-quality nursing research studies published between 2013 and 2019. The search resulted in a total of 14,191 research studies. Out of these papers, only 8 studies met the inclusion criteria based on a careful and comprehensive quality assessment. Results: The Transformational Leadership (TL) style was found to positively influences the quality of care by motivating and empowering nursing staff. Leaders following such style clearly express the organisation vision, promote trust and teamwork and also motivate nursing staff to accomplish the set goals. In addition, the TL style ensures that nurses provide healthcare services more effectively and efficiently. This style also inspires vision and communicates the vision to all organisational levels, leads by example, and develops a culture of trust and understanding, ensuring a good work environment. Moreover, TL was found to be an effective tool for changing healthcare settings and ensuring better performance among healthcare providers and attaining hospital goals. This systematic review also revealed that the TL style leads to a better working environment and promotes a positive practice setting which improves job performance and hence improves the quality of patient care. Conclusion: The TL style makes nurses feel motivated, inspired, mentored, supported and provided with a good working environment, which improves care provision . Therefore, nursing staff leadership should use the TL style to create a supportive working environment, develop and improve skills and knowledge of the nurses, as well as mentor, inspire and mentor nursing in order to ensure improved quality of patient care. Keywords: Transformational leadership, leadership style, management, quality of care, patient care, nursing practice, hospital.