Evaluation of the Relationship between the Sense of Coherence and Compassion towards the Lives of Others with Nurses' Attitudes to Patient Education: The Mediating Role of Personal Intelligence

One of the important responsibilities of nurses is patient education. Therefore, this study aimed to present the prediction model of nurses’ attitude toward patient education based on the sense of coherence, compassion towards the lives of others and personal intelligence. This correlational research was conducted on 228 nurses of hospitals of East Azerbaijan Province in 2017 selected via multistage cluster sampling. Data were collected applying Antonovsky’s sense of coherence scale, Chang’s compassion of others' lives scale (COOL), Meyer's personal intelligence survey and a researcher-made questionnaire concerning the attitude of nurses toward patient education. Data analysis was carried out in SPSS version 22 and AMOS using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Bootstrap and Sobel test. In this study, the sense of cohesion (0.32), compassion towards the lives of others (0.20) and personal intelligence (0.11) had a significantly direct impact on patient education. In addition, the sense of cohesion (t-value=2.09) and compassion towards the lives of others (t-value=2.19) had a significantly indirect effect on the attitude of nurses toward patient education. In the end, 27% of the variance of the attitude of nurses toward patient education was explained by the variables of the model. Considering the direct and indirect effect of intermediating and endogenous variables on the attitude of nurses toward patient education, it seems that this attitude could be improved by strengthening personal intelligence, sense of coherence, and compassion towards the lives of others