Italian oncology nurses' perceptions of empowering leadership styles: a descriptive cross-sectional exploratory study.

Objective: The study aims to assess the associated influencing oncology nurses' perceptions of managers' empowering leadership style and to examine the influence of sex, work experience, shift work, membership of an oncology nursing association or a scientific society, nursing educational level and specialised nursing training in oncology on oncology nurses' perceptions of managers' empowering leadership style and its subdimensions.

Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study.

Setting: In March 2024, oncology nurses employed in oncology settings were invited to participate.

Participants: All Italian oncology nurses who were currently employed were eligible to participate.

Main outcome measures: The Italian version of the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire was used to assess nurses' perceptions of managers' performance in leading by example, participative decision-making, coaching, informing and demonstrating concern/interacting with the team.

Results: A total of 298 nurses agreed to participate. The associated factors for an empowered leadership style across all subdimensions were sex (p=0.006) and the educational level in nursing (p=0.004). Participative decision-making, coaching, informing and demonstrating concern/interacting with the team subdimensions were associated with shift work. Participation in scientific associations (p=0.005) was also influential.

Conclusions: Exploring the data according to the nursing specialisation appeared intriguing, since it could be a more indicative suggestion for future interventions to implement an empowering leadership style in clinical nursing practice and better inform health policymakers to achieve the right solution in their health organisations.