The Relationship between Ethical Climate and Self-Efficacy of Midwives Working in Maternity Hospitals in Ahvaz, Iran

Midwives must have sufficient self-efficacy in addition to knowledge and skills to effectively provide reproductive health services. Self-efficacy is an important factor for successful performance. Strengthening self-efficacy of employees requires identifying its determinants or predictive factors. One of these factors is ethical climate. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between ethical climate and self-efficacy of midwives working in maternity hospitals in Ahvaz, Iran.

The present study was a descriptive study that was conducted on 192 midwives working in maternity hospitals in Ahvaz city in 2019 using convenience sampling. In order to collect data, Scherer's self-efficacy and Victor's and Cullen's ethical climate questionnaires were used. SPSS version 22 and Pearson and regression tests were used to analyze the data.

The results of the Pearson correlation coefficient test showed that there is a significant correlation between the total score of self-efficacy and all dimensions of ethical climate (p<0.05). However, no significant relationship was seen between the total self-efficacy score and total ethical climate score (p=0.119, r=0.113).

The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the dimensions of self-efficacy and ethical climate. As a result, it is necessary to pay attention to the ethical climate of organizations. Also, the necessary measures and planning in order to improve the ethical climate of the hospital and finally increase the self-efficacy of personnel and service providers should be taken into account by policy makers and senior managers.