E. Garrosa et al.
positive consequences, engagement in nursing has not yet been sufficiently studied. Therefore, authors like
Simpson [1] underscore the importance of our theoretical and practical understanding of nurse engagement in
order to prioritize and implement interventions aimed at improving nurse performance, patient outcomes, work
environment and mutual aid in the organization and other core healthcare organizational outcomes. The con-
struct of engagement provides a more complex and thorough perspective of an individual’s relationship with
work. From this perspective, HP, optimism and SWB are relevant personal resources that affect the way people
interact with their working environment. For instance, in the Job Demands-Resources Model [2], optimism,
self-efficacy, and resilience have been shown to be personal resources related to work engagement. HP can be
defined as hardy attitudes: the belief that one has control over or can influence events, feeling committed to ac-
tivities, and having a good relationship with oneself—in the sense that one recognizes one’s own distinctive
values, goals and priorities in life—, and viewing change as a challenge rather than a threat. HP has an impact
on the stress/health relationship and has been contrasted in the literature. There is also some evidence that op-
timism may be positively associated with affective measures of employee attitudes such as increased job satis-
faction and organizational commitment. Likewise, wo rkers’ SWB seems to be related to commitment and en-
thusiasm for work. Particularly, the broaden-and-build theory suggests that positive affective states expand the
behavioral repertoire, thus facilitating more efficacious responses and generating upward spirals of well-being.
In the workplace context, various studies have suggested that happy people are more productive. The aim of this
study was to analyze the experience of work engagement, examining cross-cultural differences in HP, optimism
and SWB among nurses from China and Spain, as representing the collectivism/individualism dimensions pro-
posed by Hofstede [3]. The present study tests the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1. HP dimensions, optim-
ism and SWB are positively related to work engagement (vigor, dedication and absorption) when the percentag-
es of interaction with patients are taken into account in both samples. Hypothesis 2. Personality predictors of
work engagement in China and Spain will show some cross-cultural differences between nurses from China and
Spain.
2. Method
Cross-cultural study with a sample with 154 nurses from Beijing (China) and 164 nurses from Madrid (Spain)
who completed the Engagement, HP, Optimism and SWB Scales. Inclusion criteria were working in a hospital
and interacting with patients (providing patient care). A total of 90% of the participants were female and the
other 10% were male, with a mean age of 33 years (SD = 10.86). All were full-time nurses and had an average
of 12 years of experience (SD = 8.8).
3. Results
To determine the effects of the predictors on the engagement dimensions, the percentage of interaction with the
patients was entered first as a control variable, and then the HP components, optimism and SWB were sequen-
tially entered in the model. The increase in R2 (∆R2) was calculated to determine the relative contributions of
each set of variables. Standardized coefficients (
β
) were calculated to compare the relative importance of each
variable in the model. The data were checked for multicollinearity, using tolerance and the variance inflation
factor (VIF). Values of VIF greater than 10 and tolerance-values smaller than 0.10 may indicate multicollineari-
ty. There were no signs of multicollinearity in any of the six regression models. The analyses were performed
with the SPSS-program (see Tables 1 and 2).
4. Discussion
Nurses are frequently found among the professionals who express a higher degree of dissatisfaction, and a large
percentage of them wish to leave the profession in the next five years. We therefore need to investigate the ele-
ments that could slow down this negative tendency. Positive work processes such as dedication, absorption, and
vigor are opposed to these negative feelings of dissatisfaction. As some aspects of engagement depend on con-
crete organizational characteristics, it is important for organizations to promote the development of nurses’ har-
diness and positive personality resources so they can manage the continuous contact with pain and suffering
adaptively, and deal adequately with the negative emotions that emerge at work. Thus, the variables used in all
the analyses with both samples explain a significant percentage of the scores in engagement. However, Hypo-
