The relationship between cohesion and power in staff nurses in an acute care hospital

In the past, nurses felt powerless and functioned in a subservient role in health care institutions, minimally participated in working to advance the profession, and as a rule, did not become active in influencing health policies. A sense of powerlessness prevailed as a result of nursing being a predominantly female profession (Martin, 1991). Few, if any, traditions of power within nursing have existed. The concept of power did not emerge in nursing literature until the1960s. Although issues and papers presented at the National Student Nurses Association convention in 1968 provided unprecedented momentum to nurses' concerns about power in nursing professional literature, not until the 1980s did a majority of nurses begin to view power as a positive and necessary trait (Dennis,1983; Schmieding, 1993). Nursing leaders are calling for registered nurses to recognize and exercise their potential power to elevate the status of nursing to a professional level and to work to influence national health policy in relation to health promotion and discase prevention (Cohen, 1992). Some nurses are begin-ning to use their potential power in health care institutions and in the political arena, while others have yet to realize their potential power. In the organizational pattern of shared governance, nurses come together as cohesive groups to collec-tively have the opportunity to gain power and to shape the health care system in which they practice. Cohesion has been said to be a way for all nurses to gain power, but research into the relationship of cohesion and power is lacking. This study examined the relationship between cohesion and power in staff nurses in an acute care hospital. This was a cross-sectional correlational survey of a convenience sample of female registered nurses employed as staff nurses in the general medical-surgical units and intensive care units in a large southeastern teaching hospital. The Pearson's Product Moment Correlation was performed to examine relationships among cohesion and power and demographic characteristics of the nurse, and to examine the nature of power in the nurse.

The correlations between cohesion and power and cohesion and the sub- scales of power were not statistically significant. For demographic characteristics of the nurse, the only significant relationship found was an inverse statistical relationship for number of years in practice at r = -.23 and p=.03 for power, and r = -.22 and p = .03 for cohesion, which indicates as the number of years in practice increases, perceived power and cohesion in the nurse decreases.