Investigating The relationship between moral intelligence and clinical competence of nurses working in a teaching hospital of Dezful in 2021

Clinical competence is one of the important necessities of the nursing profession, therefore, finding components and factors affecting clinical competence and its promotion has always been considered by educational healthcare systems. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between moral intelligence and clinical competence of nurses working in a teaching hospital of Dezful in 2021.

This was a descriptive-correlational study. The study population included 200 nurses working in Ganjavian teaching hospital of Dezful in 2021 and participants were selected by convenience sampling method. Data collection instruments included demographic characteristics questionnaire, The Lennick and Kiel's Moral Intelligence Standard Questionnaires and Competency Inventory for Registered Nurse (CIRN). Data analysis was carried out using descriptive and analytical statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis in SPSS ver. 21 and P-value<0.05 was considered as the significance level.

The mean moral intelligence score (156.24±21.19) indicated acceptable moral intelligence score. The mean clinical competence of nurses (152.31 ± 29.81) was at moderate level. The results of Pearson correlation coefficient showed a positive and significant correlation between all dimensions of moral intelligence and dimensions of nurses' clinical competence (r=0.656,P<0.0001). The results of regression test showed that moral intelligence is involved in explaining the variable of clinical competence of nurses (R2=0.430).

Moral intelligence plays a role in predicting the clinical competence of nurses. Therefore, it seems that the attitude of clinical competence of nurses can be strengthened by increasing moral intelligence through training workshops.