Correlation between spiritual intelligence and clinical competency of operating room and anesthesia students Hamadan University of Medical Sciences

Background and aims: Clinical competence is required to provide effective and accurate patient care. For this purpose, it is important to find the components that influence clinical competence and promote it. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between spiritual intelligence and clinical competence in operating room and anesthesia students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on 107 4th and 6th semester students in Hamadan Paramedical Faculty in 1977. Sampling was done by census method. Students' evaluation was done by Kazdin et al. (1986) spiritual intelligence questionnaires and Liu et al. (2009) clinical competency assessment questionnaire. Data were analyzed using correlation tests, t-test. Results: The results showed that 50.46% of the students had spiritual intelligence score above average ( good range ) and 49.54% of students had lower than average score ( good range ). Also 55.14% of students had clinical competency score above average (good range) and 44.86% had lower than average grade (good range). Pearson correlation test showed a significant positive correlation between students' spiritual intelligence and their clinical competence (p <0.047). Conclusion: There was a significant positive correlation between clinical competence and spiritual intelligence. Education authorities can pay attention to the training and promotion of students' spiritual intelligence in order to enhance the clinical competence of the staff. Also, due to the high importance of clinical competency in the operating room area, it is important to conduct this research with a higher statistical population.