Relationships between attributional style and self-efficacy among public health nurses depending on the results of health counseling

Abstract

Objectives: The purposes of this study were: 1) to develop an attribution scale for health counseling and to identify any cognitive style that can cause success or failure of health counseling in public health nurses and: 2) to examine relationships between attributional style and self-efficacy for implementing health counseling.
Methods: Two hundred and ninety-eight public health nurses completed a questionnaire inquiring about causes of the success and failure in their health counseling and about the self-efficacy for the health counseling implementation. The answers were analyzed by using factor analysis to clarify their characteristics of cognitive style for health counseling. Significant correlation efficiencies were identified between their attributional style and self-efficacy for implementing health counseling.
Results: Exploratory factor analysis revealed following three factors for the cause of success:1) client- centered interview methods, 2) interview skills, and 3) changing factors, also three factors for the cause of failure were revealed:1) health counselor factors, 2) uncontrollable problem, and 3) poor client-centered interview methods. The factors for the cause of success positively correlated with self-efficacy for implementing health counseling, while the factors for the cause of failure (health counselor's factors) negatively did.
Conclusion: This study identifies the attributional style to the cause of success or failure in health counseling among public health nurses, and reveals the relationships between attributional style and self-efficacy.