the relationship between clinical competence and clinical self-efficacy among nursing and midwifery students

introduction  self-efficacy in clinical performance had an important role in applying competencies; also competencies and self-efficacy in clinical performance influenced to quality care of nursing and midwifery students. so the present study aimed to define the relationship between clinical competencies and clinical self-efficacy among nursing and midwifery students. materials and methods  this is a cross-sectional study conducted on 150 of nursing and midwifery students in isfahan university of medical science, selected through two stage sampling in 2014. the participant completed questionnaires about personal/ educational characteristics and nursing competencies questionnaire (18 items) and clinical self-efficacy scale (37 items). the data were analyzed by, pearson statistical test, t-test, variance analysis through spss version16. results the results showed that 50% (n=75) and 37.4% (n=56) of nursing and midwifery students had good clinical competence and clinical self-efficacy, respectively. also the mean competencies and self-efficacy in clinical performance scores were 35.05± 1.2 and 76.03± 0.4 respectively. pearson correlation coefficient showed that there was a positive linear correlation between the score of clinical competence and clinical self-efficacy (p<0.05, r=0.73). conclusion the results reveal that self-efficacy is a significant predictor of a student&apos;s clinical performance therefore increasing clinical competence related to high clinical self-efficacy.