Effects of digital literacy and nursing informatics competency as job resources on nurses’ burnout and work engagement: a cross-sectional study

As information and communication technology continues to advance rapidly within the healthcare sector, digital literacy and nursing informatics competency have become fundamental skills required for nurses. Nurses with digital literacy and nursing informatics competency exhibit enhanced nursing performance, high productivity, and improved work efficiency. Research remains limited on how digital literacy and nursing informatics competency influence nursing outcomes, such as burnout and work engagement. Therefore, this cross-sectional exploratory study utilized the framework of the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model to investigate how digital literacy and nursing informatics competency function as job resources and influence nurses’ burnout and work engagement. In June 2025, 130 nurses working in inpatient wards, intensive care units, and emergency unit of a tertiary hospital in South Korea were recruited using convenience sampling. Participants completed a questionnaire measuring their digital literacy, nursing informatics competency, positive organizational culture, work demands, burnout, and work engagement. In total, 130 valid questionnaires were analyzed using multivariable linear regression. Mediation analyses were performed to examine whether positive organizational culture mediates the relationship between digital literacy or nursing informatics competency and work engagement. Positive organizational culture fully mediated the relationship between digital literacy and work engagement (direct effect = 0.420, 95% CI [-0.142, 0.982]; indirect effect = 0.349, 95% CI [0.108, 0.623]). Nursing informatics competency was also found to indirectly affect work engagement through positive organizational culture (indirect effect = 0.072, 95% CI [0.006, 0.170]). This study extends the JD-R framework, by indicating that digital literacy and nursing informatics competency may operate as a personal resource that facilitates greater work engagement indirectly through the organizational resource of positive nursing culture. It emphasizes the interdependence between personal and organizational factors in shaping nurses’ work engagement. Therefore, strengthening nursing organizational culture is essential. Within such a positive culture, educational programs designed to improve nurses’ digital literacy and nursing informatics competency may further promote their work engagement.