Relationships between role stress profiles, psychological capital, and work engagement among Chinese clinical nursing teachers: a cross-sectional latent profile analysis

Abstract

Abstract Background Clinical nursing practice is the keystone of nursing education. Efficient clinical nursing practices under the guidance of clinical nursing teachers can promote patient safety and healthcare quality. This study aimed to investigate the profiles of clinical nursing teachers’ role stress, determine whether sociodemographic factors and psychological capital correlate with different role stress profiles and examine the relationship between different role stress profiles and work engagement. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted in China. A total of 412 clinical nursing teachers were enrolled using 406 valid questionnaires. Clinical nursing teachers’ role stress, psychological capital, work engagement, and sociodemographic characteristics were assessed using a questionnaire. A latent profile analysis was conducted to identify the different role stress profiles of clinical nursing teachers. Univariate and multivariate unordered logistic regression analyses were used to identify the factors associated with the profiles. Results The findings of latent profile analysis showed three profiles: low role stress-high lack of teaching resources profile (34.3%), moderate role stress profile (57.0%), and high role stress-low lack of teaching resources profile (11.7%). Multivariate unordered logistic regression showed that clinical nursing teachers with lower education levels, contract employment, regular qualification audits, and lower psychological capital scores were more likely to belong to Profiles 2 and 3 when Profile 1 was used as a reference. The analysis of variance revealed that the work engagement scores of Profile 3 were significantly lower than those of Profiles 1 and 2. Conclusions Clinical nursing teachers reported heterogeneous sociodemographic and psychological capital, with significant differences in the degree of role stress between the identified profiles. Targeted interventions should be provided according to the profiles of role stress to improve work engagement and teaching quality.