Investigation of Relationship between Moral Intelligence and Clinical Self-Efficacy among Nursing Students of School of Nursing and Midwifery in Urmia, Iran, in 2019

Training competent nurses with ethical and professional qualifications is one of the main goals of nursing education. In this regard, self-efficacy and moral intelligence in educational environments are among the most important factors affecting human behaviors. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the relationship between moral intelligence and clinical self-efficacy among the nursing students of Urmia School of Nursing and Midwifery, Urmia, Iran, during 2019.

This descriptive study was performed on a total of 216 nursing students of Urmia School of Nursing and Midwifery In 2019. The data were collected using a 3-part questionnaire, including demographic characteristics, Lennick and Kiel moral intelligence, and self-efficacy of nursing studentsʼ clinical performance. The Pearsonʼs correlation coefficient, independent t-test, analysis of variance, and Chi-square test were used in order to analyze the data.The obtained results of the present study showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between moral intelligence and self-efficacy, and the relationship between self-efficacy and moral intelligence was reported as 0.469 (P=0.000). In addition, the correlation coefficient of moral intelligence with clinical self-efficacy was 0.314 (P=0.000), and the explanatory coefficient was 0.307. Finally, based on the obtained results it can be stated that 30.7% of the clinical self-efficacy of the students could be explained using the moral intelligence variable (P=0.001).

The results of this study demonstrated that moral intelligence is a good predictor of emotional self-efficacy, and the integration of ethical intelligence and self-efficacy enables powerful bases to emerge from ethical abilities in the field of clinical therapy. Therefore, to improve and enhance the studentsʼ sense of self-efficacy, the authorities should pay attention to the essential component of moral intelligence and try to promote it through practical training.