The relationship between role stress, psychological empowerment and organizational silence of psychiatric nurses: a variable-centered and individual-centered analysis.

Background: In psychiatric nursing, organizational silence behavior seriously affects patient safety and nursing quality. Role stress is an important predictor of organizational silence, and psychological empowerment can alleviate role stress and reduce silence behavior. However, the mediating relationship among these three variables and group heterogeneity remain unclear. Objective: To explore the mediating role of psychological empowerment between role stress and organizational silence, and to identify different latent classes of the "role stress-psychological empowerment" dyad using latent profile analysis, so as to provide evidence for targeted interventions. Methods: In the Mental Health Center of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province in the northeastern part of China, 391 nurses were included in a cross-sectional survey. Subsequently, the mediating effect was first tested using the structural equation model, and then potential subgroups were identified using latent profile analysis. Results: (1) Role stress was positively correlated with organizational silence, while psychological empowerment was negatively correlated with both role stress and organizational silence. (2) Role stress not only directly affected organizational silence but also had an indirect effect through psychological empowerment, with psychological empowerment playing a partial mediating role and the mediation effect accounting for 23.6% of the total effect. (3) The role stress-psychological empowerment dyad was classified into three latent classes, and organizational silence scores differed significantly across classes. Conclusions: Psychological empowerment serves as a partial mediator; the "role stress-psychological empowerment" dyad demonstrates distinct classification characteristics. It is recommended that nursing managers adopt differentiated intervention strategies according to group characteristics to reduce organizational silence and foster a participative and positive organizational climate.