Iran Journal of Nursing

  Background & Aim: Currently, the most concern in the clinical nursing practice is the increasing problems related to the low morale in nurses. However, the importance of managerial behaviors and their influence on nurses' morale are obvious. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate "the effects of coaching role of clinical supervisors on staff nurses' morale ".

  Material & Method: A quasi-experimental research with pre and post-test in two groups (experimental and control) was conducted in one of the teaching hospitals in Tehran which was selected randomly. There were eight medical–surgical units that randomly allocated in two groups. The study samples included 54 nurses, 27 nurses in each group of experimental and control. Data was gathered in two periods of pre and post intervention by a Staff Nurse Morale Questionnaire. The intervention had two stages the first was orientation: nursing management development program and the second was optimizing environment by designing an applied supervision guide for coaching roles of supervisors. After this stage, clinical supervisors played coaching role for 16 weeks as coaching role players.

  Results: The Chi-square test revealed no significant differences between the two groups of experimental and control regarding individual characteristics (such as age, gender, job…). The mean scores of nursing morales in the experimental group at pre and post-intervention were 59.30 and 71.30 respectively that the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001) whereas in the control group the mean of morale scores at pre and post-intervention were 69.33 and 64.07, that the reduction was significant (P<0.020). Therefore, coaching role playing by clinical supervisors resulted to staff nurses’ morale improvement.

  Conclusion: One of the approaches for improvement of nursing morale is applying suitable supervision and leadership methods. Thus, according to the study findings, coaching role playing by supervisors as a novel principle of supervision and leadership can be used for nurses' morale promotion.