Iran Journal of Nursing

Introduction
Caring is one of the most fundamental elements of the nursing profession. Caring behavior is in line with the health of patients. Nurses’ caring behaviors are derived from their knowledge, attitude, and practice, and the quality of nursing care can be judged by measuring the knowledge, attitude and practice of nurses. Psychological capital is a positive psychological state and is defined based on self-efficacy, optimism about success in achieving goals, and the ability to survive when facing problems (resilience). People with psychological capital have higher psychological health.  It enables people to cope with stressful situations better and be less stressed. Hospitals should pay attention to the psychological capital of nurses for long-term investment in human, social, and organizational aspects. This study aims to determine the relationship between psychological capital and caring behaviors of nurses in Khorramabad, Iran.

Methods
This is a descriptive-correlational study with a cross-sectional design. The study population consists of all nurses working in four hospitals affiliated to Lorestan University of Medical Sciences in Khorramabad city in 2023. Of these, 300 nurses were selected. The sampling method was proportional allocation. To collect information, we used (a) demographic form, (b) McGee’s psychological capital questionnaire (PCQ) with 26 items and four components of self-efficacy (items 1-7), hope (items 8-14), resilience (items 15-20), and optimism (items 21-26), and (c) Wolff et al.’s caring behaviors inventory (CBI) with 42 items, and five subscales of respectful deference to others (items 1-12), assurance of human presence (items 13-24), positive connectedness (items 25-33), professional knowledge and skill (items 34-38), attentiveness to others’ experiences (items 39-42) and a total score of 42-252.
Data analysis was done in SPSS software, version 20 using descriptive statistics (frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Pearson’s correlation test, independent t-test and analysis of variance, and multiple linear regression analysis).

Results 
Of 300 questionnaires, 279 were completed. The mean age of nurses was 32.14±5.64 years. Most of them were female (75.3%) and married (58.4%) with a bachelor’s degree (92.8%), moderate economic status (69.3%), no history of underlying diseases (88.5%), and rotating work shit (88.2%). Their mean overall work experience and the work experience in the current department were 8.06±5.30 and 4.35±3.58 years, respectively.
The findings showed that the caring behavior had a direct and significant correlation with psychological capital (r=0.407, P<0.001) and its all dimensions. The highest correlation was in the dimension of hope (r=0.398, P<0.001) and the lowest correlation was in the dimension of self-efficacy (r=0.281, P<0.001). Psychological capital also had a direct and significant correlation with all domains of caring behavior (P<0.001). 

Conclusion
The psychological capital of nurses has a significant relationship with their caring behavior. This indicates that nurses with high psychological capital provide more appropriate caring behavior, or the nurses with more appropriate caring behavior have higher psychological capital. Hospital managers should pay more attention to the psychological capital of nurses and its impact on their caring behavior.

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study received ethical approval from the Research Ethics Committee of Iran University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.IUMS.REC.1401.692).

Funding
This article was extracted from the master’s thesis of Foroud Amraei, funded by Iran University of Medical Sciences.

Authors' contributions
Data analysis: Ezzat Jafarjalal and Naeime Seyyedfatemi; Writing, drafting, review: Foroud Amraei; Editing: Masoud Feyzbabaie; Statistical analysis: Hamid Haghani.

Conflict of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Vice-Chancellor for Research of Iran University of Medical Sciences for the financial support, and all the nurses who participated in this study for their cooperation.

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