Empower: A concept analysis for the new paradigm

Concepts create our language and shape our world. Clarifying concepts will empower nurses to facilitate the changes needed in the future. Rodgers' (1989) evolutionary method of concept analysis was used to clarify the meaning of empower. This method was further developed to be congruent with the new processual paradigm foundational for this study. In order to examine the concept, a systematic random sample of 30 articles from the periodic literature of five disciplines was used (nursing, sociology, psychology, education, and business). Through a reflective analytic process twenty-nine attributes of the concept were identified and gathered into the five themes representing the concept. Two metathemes were identified, one for the concept and one for the context of the concept. To give, share, and/or have the ability to fully participate in life situations and experience well-being in the process is the definition of empower, as it emerged in the study.