relationship between clinical competence and motivation needs of nurses based on the mcclelland theory

background & aim : nurses’ clinical competence is the most important topics of nursing professional influenced by intrinsic motivational factors in addition to external motivational factors. this study is designed to determine the relationship between clinical competence and motivational factors from mcclelland’s theory of needs that include: need for affiliation, need for achievement and need for power. methods & materials : this descriptive–correlation survey was performed on 200 nurses in three hospitals of babol university of medical sciences, by simple random sampling method. data collection tools for this study were included: demographic information, motivational needs questionnaire, and clinical competence questionnaire. among 200 questionnaires distributed, 175 questionnaires were collected, of which 171 questionnaires completed (response rate 87.5%), this number exceeded the number was defined by sample size calculation as based sample (165 participants). the data after collecting were analyzed, using spss, statistical software version 19 with descriptive statistics and pearson tests, anova test, scheffe test, and t-test. results : based on the results of the survey, there was a significant relationship between clinical competence and the motivation need for affiliation (r = 0.377, p = 0.000), need for achievement (r = 0.291, p = 0.000) and need for power (r = 0.200, p = 0.009). as well as corresponding selfassessment nurses, need for achievement with the highest mean of 45.27 ± 6.39 ranked first, need for affiliation with a mean of 44.36 ± 5.83 ranked second and need for power with a mean of 39.24 ± 7.19 was ranked third. in addition, the results showed significant differences in clinical nurses competence of hospital “c” with a mean of 115 ± 14.97 compared with nurses competence of hospital “a” with a mean of 122.55 ± 11.65 and hospital “b” with a mean of 121.67 ± 9.57. conclusion : there is a significant relationship between motivational needs and clinical competence, hence that the strongest relationship had existed between need for affiliation and clinical competence and the weakest relationship had existed between need for power and clinical competence, so more attention by nursing managers is essential to provide appropriate feedback to steernurses’ efforts for improving patients’ care.