Correlation of Assertiveness and Depression in Clinical Nurses

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the degrees of assertiveness and depression in clinical nurses and identify the relationships between them.

Method: The study included 261 clinical nurses working at one university hospital in the Kyunggi province. The assertiveness scale and a micro simple mental diagnosis test were used to assess the variables. Data were analyzed using SPSS.

Results: The average assertiveness score was 3.04±0.38 and an average depression score 1.23±.071. Statistically significant differences in assertiveness were identified with regards to marital status (p=.034), type of families (p=.005), number of counselling persons (p=.007), and subjective mental health status (p<.001). In addition, the assertiveness scores were statistically significant based on job position(p=.032), and the levels of satisfaction with nursing job (p=.015). There were significant negative correlations between assertiveness and depression of clinical nurses(r=-.237, p<.001).

Conclusion: These findings suggest that assertiveness training for clinical nurses is necessary, especially for novice nurses, in order to decrease the level of depression.