Decisional involvement: staff nurse and nurse manager perceptions

Enhancing involvement in organizational decisions is one strategy to improve the work environment of registered nurses and to increase their recruitment and retention. Little is known about the type of decision making and the level of involvement nurses desire. This was a descriptive study exploring staff nurse and nurse manager ratings of actual and preferred decisional involvement and differences between staff nurses and nurse managers. A sample of 320 RNs from a Midwestern health care network was surveyed using the Decisional Involvement Scale. Nurse managers and staff nurses had statistically significant differences in their perceptions of who was involved in actual decision making in the areas of unit governance and leadership and collaboration or liaison activities. There were statistically significant differences in preferred decisional involvement between staff nurses and nurse managers in the overall DIS scale and the subscales of unit governance and leadership and quality of support staff practice.