Effect of Self awareness Education on the Self efficacy and Sociotropy Autonomy Characteristics of Nurses in a Psychiatry Clinic

To be a part of the therapy in the patients' surroundings, nurses need to know about patient's behaviors, needs, feelings, and ways to define these behaviors. However, to obtain information on patient, nurses particularly need to be aware of themselves and understand the effects they have on their surroundings. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of self awareness education on the self efficacy and sociotropy autonomy characteristics of nurses in a psychiatric inpatient clinic at Zagazig University Hospitals. The sample was composed of 19 nurses who on the job. Three tools were used for data collection: nurses characteristics data form, self efficacy scale, and sociotropy autonomy scale. The study result indicated that the psychiatric nurses self efficacy was improved at post educational program, a significant difference was observed between the pre-test and post-test mean scores for the total nurses autonomy and total nurses sociotropy (P<0.05). However the mean score of total Sociotropy autonomy didn't differ significantly at pre and post educational program (P=0.488), and a highly significant correlation was present between total of self efficacy and total of sociotropy autonomy at pre and post educational program (P<0.05). It was concluded that self awareness education program had a positive effect on the development of self efficacy and sociotropy autonomy characteristics of nurses in a psychiatric clinic. It is recommended that, self awareness education should be applied as continuing education for nurses working in psychiatry clinics and further studies should be carried out with bigger and different sample groups, along with control groups. (Hanem A. A. Ahmed and Yosr M. Elmasri. Effect of Self awareness Education on the Self efficacy and Sociotropy Autonomy Characteristics of Nurses in a Psychiatric Clinic. Life Science Journal, 2011; 8(2):853-863) (ISSN: 1097- 8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com.