Psychometric properties of a Recovery Empowerment Scale: Testing emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and relational domains

Psychological safety mediates attendance and recovery-related outcomes within the Phoenix: a sober-active community

Background

People in recovery from a substance use disorder often have difficulties forming pro-social relationships or accessing supportive communities. Providing psychological safety within recovery communities may be uniquely beneficial, yet psychological safety has mostly been studied among professional organizations and not among vulnerable populations. This program evaluation study examined associations between attendance, psychological safety, and retrospective recovery-related changes.

Methods

Participants included 204 members of The Phoenix (13% response rate) who completed a survey that addressed recovery status and current perceptions of psychological safety, with hope, connection, empowerment, motivation to stay sober, mental health and physical health at 3-months and thinking back to baseline (i.e., "thentest"). Demographic information and attendance data were also collected.

Results

Structural equation modeling found a good fit for the model (χ2 = 187.40, p = 0.23; RMSEA =0.049, GFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.98, SRMSR = 0.05.) and all path coefficients were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Participants' perceived psychological safety fully mediated the relationship between attendance and recovery-related outcomes. Attendance was also directly and positively associated with physical health.

Conclusion

Due to positive improvements in health and recovery-related outcomes mediated by psychological safety, results show benefits of attending events hosted by The Phoenix for those in recovery from substance use. Additional research should further validate the importance of psychological safety as a key mediator of the recovery process.

Building bridges: how women's relational empowerment is linked to well-being and community embeddedness

Both host nations and expatriates themselves are concerned with the integration of women expatriates into host countries' societies. We developed a framework based on empowerment theory to illustrate how relational empowerment influences well-being and community embeddedness in a host country. By promoting relational empowerment, individuals enhance their well-being, making them more engaged and embedded within a community. This study collected data from 218 women expatriates living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and utilized the Hayes PROCESS Macro to test four proposed hypotheses. Based on bootstrapping and regression results, we found that women's relational empowerment is directly and indirectly linked to community embeddedness, with this indirect relationship influenced by factors such as women's well-being. We discussed the implications of these findings for both theoretical advancement and the development of practical strategies, emphasizing on how relational empowerment can impact women's well-being and lead to greater community embeddedness in the UAE and potentially elsewhere.

Empowerment of individuals in Iranian health systems: a qualitative study using the Z-cognitive map approach

The empowerment of people is considered as one of the most effective approaches in national healthcare systems. Identifying the effective criteria for this empowerment approach can be useful for planning enhancements. Therefore, studying and researching different aspects of people empowerment, and identifying the various relationships among related factors are of great importance. In this study - after identifying and extracting the effective factors in empowering individuals/insured persons, and interviewing health insurance and healthcare experts through content analysis - a causal model examining variables and their impact intensity through cognitive mapping is designed and drawn up. In modeling the concept of empowerment, to cover the ambiguity of expert comments, a combination of the Z-number approach with cognitive mapping has been used. Results demonstrate how various factors relate to insured empowerment. According to the results of empowerment strategies, the insurance participation strategy with the highest central index was determined as the most effective strategy, and the appropriate component for individuals gained the highest score in the centrality index. The results of this article help a lot to policy making in medical insurance.

The longitudinal effect of the quality of participation experiences in a voluntary organization on youth psychological empowerment

Research shows its limitations by not capturing the specificities of individual experiences, which result either from the participation of or interaction among different people in a given context across time. This study explores the effect that the quality of youth participation experiences in a Portuguese voluntary organization can have on the development of their psychological empowerment (PE). This study adopted a longitudinal, quantitative design where the same cohort of 481 participants (62.4% female; Mage  = 17.26 years) was followed across three time points. Latent growth curve modeling was performed to examine the effect of the quality of participation experiences (QPE) on the developmental trajectories of PE components. Findings show that the QPE had the most powerful effect on developmental trajectories in PE. The study shows how youth perceptions of opportunities for reflection and action in interaction in a climate of openness to dialogue and the emergence of different ways of thinking and doing affect their PE.