The Role of Teachers 'Professional Characteristics on Students' Self-Efficacy and Competence

Background & Aims: Mental health is one of the most important components of a healthy life. Mental health seeks to reduce negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and hopelessness and to prevent the occurrence of morbid symptoms in people. During the last few decades, the issue of mental health has been considered as one of the important aspects of health. Risk factors for mental health problems include family history, stressful life conditions, chronic illness, history of trauma, drug use, neglect or abuse in childhood, and lack of social support. The importance of mental health is due to its close connection with physical health. Mental health plays an important role in people's ability to maintain physical health. Mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety affect people's ability to participate in health-promoting behaviors. In turn, physical health problems such as chronic diseases can have a serious impact on mental health and reduce people's ability to participate in treatment and recovery. Specialists and researchers are looking for factors that can affect mental health. Meanwhile, marital satisfaction and self-efficacy are among the factors affecting the mental health of cancer patients, and the need for more investigations in this field is felt. The psychological effects caused by this diagnosis and the physical effects caused by its treatments are accompanied by many side effects, and due to the changes, sometimes self-confidence is jeopardized. Personal communication is disrupted due to uncertainty about the future. The previous adaptation mechanisms seem insufficient and being admitted to the hospital may induce a feeling of loneliness. It should be noted that chronic diseases, including cancer, can have destructive effects and affect the satisfaction of couples. Marital satisfaction is the most important component of marriage. It seems that mental health as a component of individual characteristics is related to marital satisfaction. The perception of self-efficacy is also a cognitive mechanism that creates the ability to control fearful things in a person and enables him to face problems. Understanding the ability makes a person avoid behaviors. People who have a clear, defined, harmonious, and almost stable sense of self-efficacy have more psychological health. These people have reached a clear view of themselves and are less influenced by daily events and evaluations of these events. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the role of marital satisfaction and self-efficacy in the mental health of these patients. Methods: For this purpose, 135 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in Shiraz city who were referred to chemotherapy centers in Shiraz in 2013 were selected. In this study, Goldberg's general health (1972), Fores and Elson's (1989) marital satisfaction, and Sherer et al.'s (1982) general self-efficacy questionnaires were used. The data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis methods. Results: The results of these analyzes showed that marital satisfaction and self-efficacy predict mental health in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Conclusion: In a general summary and according to the results of the present study, it can be stated that marital satisfaction and self-efficacy predict the level of mental health in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, so the attention of patients and Caregivers of these patients are important to the categories of marital satisfaction and self-efficacy. Just as every research has its limitations, this research also has limitations in several areas due to the special physical and mental conditions of these patients. The current research has been conducted on a special group of people (cancer patients) who may have many problems with attention and concentration, which may have affected their answers to the questions in the questionnaires. The small number of subjects may also be one of the other limitations of this research. Another limitation of this research is the non-uniformity of the sample group in terms of gender, type of cancer, and benign and malignant disease, which may have affected variables related to mental health. Using the available sampling method and collecting data using a self-report questionnaire by patients is another limitation of the present study. Considering that the statistical population studied in this research are cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and a lot of psychological pressure is imposed on these patients, it is suggested that the role of other predictive variables in the mental health of this group of patients Review. Considering the importance of the concept of mental health and because this construct is relatively new and few types of research related to it have been done in our country, it is suggested to investigate it in different chronic and clinical patients to validate the results of this research. Also, considering the limitations of the current research in evaluating mediating and moderating variables, it is suggested that in future research, the role of these variables should be controlled and investigated, and various researchers in different formats (descriptive, experimental, longitudinal, etc.) to be done in connection with it. This research should also be done in single patients because the stress and type and amount of support in these patients are different. Also, regarding the effect of self-efficacy in cancer patients, this research is still in its development period and the need for more research in this field is felt.