Role of Spiritual Intelligence in Defensive Styles of Nursing Students

Nursing is a demanding and stressful profession and puts the health of nurses at risk. One concept that has always been associated with the word ‘anxious’ is called defensive style. Sigmund Freud used this term to indicate how people use mechanisms to protect themselves from psychological trauma. This study investigated the role of spiritual intelligence in predicting the defensive style of nursing students. This descriptive-survey and correlation study included all nursing students at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences who were studying in the 2012-2013 academic year. Of these, 310 were randomly selected by cluster sampling and responded to King Spiritual Intelligence and Defense Style Questionnaire DSQ-40. The collected data was analyzed using Pearson correlation and simple linear regression. The findings indicate that a positive and significant relationship exists between spiritual intelligence and its components [critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion] with defense styles (P<0.001). Also, the relationship between spiritual intelligence and its components and neurotic and immature defense styles is negative and significant (P<0.001). Results of the regression analysis showed that spiritual intelligence could positively and significantly predict mature defense styles and could negatively and significantly predict immature and neurotic defense styles. Based on the results, it can be concluded that students with a higher spiritual intelligence use less neurotic and immature defense styles and more mature defense styles.