Investigating the daily need satisfaction and work engagement of nurses: a diary study

Abstract

The constructs of this study respectively have gained increasing attention from research in the past. However, research gaps still exist when considering how these constructs have an impact on one another within different sectors and occupations. More specifically, within the health-care sector, the research gap with regard to how daily need satisfaction has an impact on daily work engagement of night-shift nurses working seven consecutive days within the public health-care sector, calls for investigation. The general objective of this study was to determine the impact of daily need satisfaction on work engagement, as well as to explore which factors of general job demands, general job resources and general work engagement impact significant daily variable variations. A quantitative, 'shortitudinal' research design with a multilevel research approach was implemented. Data was collected by means of convenience sampling among nurses working night-shift seven consecutive workdays in a public hospital (n = 33). The sample of nurses had to complete a general questionnaire on the first day of data collection. Thereafter they had to complete daily paper-based questionnaires once a day after having worked night-shift. Multilevel analysis was used for testing the hypotheses whereby repeated measures gave an indication of variance both within participants over days and among participants. The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to compare within and between person variance. The results revealed that the daily basic need satisfaction of autonomy and relatedness did not significantly predict variance in daily work engagement. However, daily need satisfaction of competence significantly predicted variance in daily work engagement. General emotional load explained significant variability in daily need satisfaction of competence. Lastly, general role clarity had a negative impact on the daily variability in work engagement. Recommendations were made to be applied in practice, as well as for future research.