Relationship between Head Nurses’ Ethical Leadership and Demographic Characteristics with General Self-Efficacy of ICU Nurses in Educational-Treatment Centers of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran, 2019

Background and Objective: Ethical leadership has emerged as a new approach in the perspective of leadership and has provided a basis for the promotion of individual and organizational effectiveness by prioritizing ethics in the organization. This study aimed to determine the relationship between head nurses’ ethical leadership and demographic characteristics with the general self-efficacy of nurses working in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Materials and Methods: This descriptive correlational study was conducted in 2019 on 230 nurses working in ICUs of educational-treatment centers of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran, who were selected using a stratified proportional sampling method. Data were collected by ethical leadership in nursing and the general self-efficacy scale of Scherer. Data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 16) through descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: There was no statistically significant association between the ethical leadership of head nurses and the general self-efficacy of nurses. The general self-efficacy of formal nurses was higher than contractual (P=0.04) and resident nurses (P=0.02), and the self-efficacy of ICU nurses was higher than those working in burn units (P=0.03). Moreover, general self-efficacy decreased with work experience (P<0.05). Considering the output of the artificial neural network, the normalized significance scores of the independent variables on the dependent variable were obtained at 100, 74.8, 56.2, 52, 47.6, 46.4, 38.1, 37.1, 27, and 13.3, for work experience, pioneering, task orientation, moralism, workplace, age, job status, gender, division of power, and education, respectively. Conclusion: Considering the significant association between some demographic variables and the general self-efficacy of nurses, nursing managers are recommended to consider these variables, especially in retraining, to improve the general self-efficacy of nurses