Nursing has three powers that it can exercise to enhance its optimum contribution. The three domains are control over the substance of practice; that is, the content, the context of practice, and the control of the professionalism; competence. “The absence of power in the regulation of content and context of the nursing occupation indicates the elusive power for many nurses.” Power is a necessity that enables members of a profession to practice relentlessly because members of an occupation will be able to raise their status, be able to define their expertise, and achieve and maintain their autonomy and authority. A common feature is that professionals have power over their practice and discipline.
This is commonly referred to as autonomy. Nurses belong to a profession that combines science and technology with an urge to develop public health. A vast chance for nurses to create and exercise authority over their autonomous profession; to influence the public opinion and policy by demonstrating their power over the content and context, expertise, empathy, and caring. It equips nurses with the supremacy to exercise independent resolution-making at the local level than bequeath others to authority to make choices that affect health care. This empowerment is manifested in Nursing education and empowerment. “This is a requirement for nurses to fulfill their role as advocates of patients.”
The first gradual step to political association and engagement is the empowerment that can only be conducted through education. Political education has to be incorporated into the curriculum, and the main objective should be to stress policy development and strategic tactics for addressing the political process. Education marks the beginning of a major step towards the fight against lack of knowledge to self-empowerment that lead to political action. When supplied with the conceptual framework, they will be able to understand the many facets and orders of politics.
Empowerment has to be devolved into three standards: structural, psychological, and relational empowerment.
Structural empowerment has its origin grounded on the theory of structural empowerment; it relates opportunity and power with organizational effectiveness and success that should be made available for all employees. Management is participative; enrichment of the jobs established with well-identified organizational goals, involvement of staff in decision making with less bureaucracy. This is the major concern with the current empowerment of the nursing profession.
Psychological empowerment is the other mode. It is built from the very setup of the job; it has room for nurses to embark on anything they may think right and necessary to have their job done. This nature of the setup provides the source of power. Psychological empowerment starts with the interaction of the work environment with an individual’s personality traits, the interaction of the environment with personality has a direct effect on empowerment cognition. It reflects on active involvement, and as such, self-efficacy has been discovered to contribute to professional nursing behaviors.
Finally, relational empowerment is an additional theory. Feminist empowerment has helped to find a solution for disempowerment. Many scholarships focus on overcoming oppressive job conditions. This point of view asserts that nurses have to depend on relationships in order to build power.