Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Apr 19, 2025; 15(4): 102672
Published online Apr 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i4.102672
Investigation of the relationship between nurses’ levels of mental health literacy, holistic nursing competencies, and professional self-efficacy
Kubra Durmus, Havva Akpinar
Kubra Durmus, Department of Nursing, Mugla Sıtkı Kocman University, Institute of Health Sciences, Mugla 48100, Türkiye
Havva Akpinar, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Mugla Sıtkı Koçman University Faculty of Health Sciences, Menteşe 48100, Türkiye
Author contributions: Durmus K contributed to data collection; Akpinar H contributed to study supervision; Durmus K and Akpinar H contributed to study design, data analysis, manuscript writing, and critical revisions for important intellectual content; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Medical and Health Sciences Ethics Committee-2, Sports, Health, approval No. 230156-165.
Informed consent statement: Participants were selected voluntarily and were informed through an “Informed Consent Form”.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The dataset analyzed in this study is not publicly available due to the subjects’ permission to use it only for data analysis and not for any other use, but it is available from the corresponding author upon a reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Havva Akpinar, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Mugla Sıtkı Koçman University Faculty of Health Sciences, Kötekli Neighborhood, Marmaris Road, Menteşe 48100, Türkiye. havvaakpinar@mu.edu.tr
Received: October 25, 2024
Revised: January 21, 2025
Accepted: February 17, 2025
Published online: April 19, 2025
Processing time: 151 Days and 13.5 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Given their responsibility for the well-being of individuals, nurses with advanced mental health literacy, along with strong holistic nursing competencies and professional self-efficacy, are better equipped to assess both the mental and physical health of their patients, leading to the provision of holistic nursing care.

AIM

To investigate the relationship between nurses’ mental health literacy levels and their holistic nursing competencies, as well as their nursing professional self-efficacy.

METHODS

This study is cross-sectional, correlational research. The study sample consisted of a total of 261 volunteer nurses working in a training and research hospital and a state hospital between March 11, 2024 and April 8, 2024. Data were collected face to face with the “Descriptive Data Form”, “Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS)”, “Holistic Nursing Competence Scale (HNCS)”, and the “Nursing Profession Self-Efficacy Scale (NPSES)”.

RESULTS

The mean scale scores for the nurses were as follows: MHLS: 95.88 ± 11.67; HNCS: 179.46 ± 33.82; NPSES: 64.79 ± 11.24. A low-level positive correlation was found between the total scores of the MHLS, HNCS, and NPSES, and a moderate-level positive correlation was observed between the total scores of the HNCS and NPSES. These correlations were statistically significant (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

It is recommended that initiatives be undertaken to enhance the mental health literacy and holistic nursing competencies of nurses and that similar studies be conducted with nurses in different institutions and with a larger number of nurses.

Keywords: Mental health; Literacy; Holistic; Competence; Nursing; Self-efficacy

Core Tip: This study found that nurses’ mental health literacy was low, while their holistic nursing competencies were rated as moderate, and their professional self-efficacy was high. In addition, an interesting finding of our study is the identification of a low positive correlation between the total scores of the Mental Health Literacy Scale, the Holistic Nursing Competence Scale, and the Nursing Profession Self-Efficacy Scale. In addition, a moderate positive correlation was found between total scores on the Holistic Nursing Competence Scale and Nursing Profession Self-Efficacy Scale. The regression analysis conducted to determine the cause and effect relationship between the scales was also found to be significant.