Relationship between nurse's conflict management styles and critical thinking skills in the clinical setting

The work environment for nurses has caused conflict is an inevitable part of the actives them. Therefore, nurses should to think comprehensively about problems and to make decisions independently. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between conflict management and critical thinking skills in nursing of hospitals of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. This is a descriptive correlational study. Study population was nurses working at hospitals of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. According Morgan table 337 nurses were selected by random cluster sampling. The instrument used in this study consists of three parts: demographic information questionnaire, the Thomas- Kilmann conflict management questionnaire and California Critical Thinking Skills Test. For data analysis in SPSS 16 was used descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, Anova, t-est, Pearson Correlation Coefficient. in conflict management was the highest average related to the compromise with 18.33 and lowest completion with 12.58.mean of critical thinking skills in nursing was 14.92. The highest average related to the deduction with 7.21 and lowest average related to the analyzing with 4. There was not a significant relationship between critical thinking and conflict management (r=. o41). The results of this research showed the nurses used different styles of conflict management and their critical thinking score is below the average. They need proper training.