Premium
Health‐promoting leadership: An integrative review and future research agenda
Author(s) -
Akerjordet Kristin,
Furunes Trude,
Haver Annie
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1111/jan.13567
Subject(s) - cinahl , health care , nursing , health promotion , competence (human resources) , psychology , medline , inclusion (mineral) , medicine , public health , psychological intervention , political science , social psychology , law
Aim To provide a synthesis of the evidence of health‐promoting leadership related to nursing by exploring definitions, core attributes and critical conditions. Background Increasing pressure in healthcare settings due to efficiency requirements, population ageing with complex illnesses and projected global shortage of nurses, is a potential threat to nurses’ health and job satisfaction, and patient quality of care and safety. New ways of thinking about nursing leadership and evidence‐based human resource management are required to improve nursing environments. Design Integrative literature review. Data Sources Eight databases were searched: Academic Search Premier, CINAHL , Emerald, ERIC , Web of Science, MEDLINE , Psychinfo and Science Direct. Included papers were published between 2000–2016. Review methods Of 339 papers, 13 were eligible for inclusion: eight qualitative and five quantitative. Studies were assessed for quality using standardized checklists. Framework‐based synthesis was used, allowing for themes identified a priori to be specified as coding categories. This method also allows new themes to emerge de novo. Results Four themes were identified. There are multiple definitions of health‐promoting leadership, along with description of the non‐health‐promoting leader. The health‐promoting nurse leader engages in employees’ health promotion, and takes responsibility for actions and maintains open communication, accommodating nurses’ participation in change processes. Through competence development, the health‐promoting organization builds capacity. Conclusion Health‐promoting leadership may be a promising path to optimizing nursing outcomes through holistic thinking, which emphasizes the importance of context. Accumulated research is required to build a stronger line of international research, with attention to underlying mechanisms, limiting conditions and behaviours known to health‐promoting leadership.