Hasan Jafari
1 
, Mohammad Kazem Rahimi
1 , Sara Jam Barsang
2 , Zohreh Birjandi
3* 1 Management and Health Policy Research Center, Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
2 Center for Healthcare Data Modeling, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
3 Student Research Committee, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran
Abstract
Background. Improving the quality of working life of organizations' employees affects the quality of the services they provide, their productivity, and their mental health. Studies have shown that the low quality of working life increases the number of employee complaints, the rate of absenteeism, and the application of disciplinary regulations, but decreases the employees' positive attitude and discourages their participation in the suggested system programs. Meeting the needs of employees, on the other hand, leads to the improvement and long-term efficiency of the organization. Moral intelligence refers to the capacity and ability of an individual to understand right from wrong, have strong moral beliefs and act based on them, and behave appropriately. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between moral intelligence and quality of working life of the officials working in different units of the teaching hospitals in Yazd city, Iran.
Methods. In this descriptive study, a census sampling method was adopted to investigate all officials (i.e., 75 individuals) working in different units of teaching hospitals affiliated with Shahid Sadougi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd, Iran in 2023. Two standard questionnaires including moral intelligence of Kiel and Lenik and the quality of life of Casio were used to collect the required data. It should be noted that the demographic information including age, sex, education, and work experience was provided at the beginning of the questionnaires and before its main items. The questionnaires were distributed and collected by the researcher visiting the hospital and providing additional explanations. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS version 22 software, descriptive statistics (i.e., prevalence, mean, standard deviation), as well as t-test, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U, and Kruskal-Wallis tests.
Results. Majority of the participants were females (62.7%), aged 31-40 years (49.3%), had a work experience of 10-20 years (56%), and had bachelor's degrees (54.7%). The total score of the quality of working life of the participants was (107.82±18.63), and the total score of the moral intelligence was (163.76±16.11). Therefore, the scores of both variables were above the average level. Generally, there was no significant relationship between the two variables of quality of working life and moral intelligence (P=0.051), but a significant relationship was observed between the participation and communication dimensions of the overall score of moral intelligence (P<0.05).
Conclusion. It was recommended that the policy makers and macro decision makers in the field of health and treatment should pay more attention to the improvement of communication between employees and officials as well as to the encouragement of participation in decision-making and goal-setting processes, which, in turen, may have contributed to strengthening moral intelligence and improving the quality of their life in the organization.
Extended Abstract
Background
Moral intelligence, by definition, is the capacity and ability to understand right from wrong, have strong moral beliefs and act based on them, and behave appropriately. The quality of working life refers to a set of results for employees such as job satisfaction, growth opportunities, psychological issues, job security, relations with the employer, and the low rate of accidents. Studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between the components of the quality of working life and the performance of employees. Furthermore, moral intelligence is related to the nurses' professional behavior, so that their professional behavior improves with an increase in moral intelligence level. Taking into account the facts that the moral intelligence is closely related to the concept of quality of working life and that the quality of working life plays an important role in increasing the productivity in work environment and contributes positively to providing health care services and improving the level of capability and efficiency of the hospitals, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between moral intelligence and quality of working life of the officials working in different units of the teaching hospitals affiliated with Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd, Iran in 2023.
Methods
In this descriptive study, a census sampling method was employed to investigate all officials (i.e., 75 individuals) working in different units of the hospitals, included presidents and managers, matrons, supervisors, and financial managers of the hospitals. Two standard questionnaires, namely the moral intelligence of Kiel and Lennick and the quality of working life of Casio, were used to collect the data. The face and content validity of the questionnaires were already measured by the experts, but the reliability of the questionnaires were examined using the test-retest (0.894) developed by Bahrami et al. The content validity of the quality of working life questionnaire was also evaluated by the experts, and its reliability was calculated as 0.85 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient by Maleki et al. Data analysis was conducted by adopting descriptive statistics methods (i.e., mean, standard deviation, etc.), and the relationship between variables was determined by performing independent t-test, ANOVA, u-test, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. The significance level in this study was set at 0.05, and SPSS software (version 22) was used for data analysis.
Results
According to our study results, the average score of the quality of working life of participants was (107.82±18.63), and the score of moral intelligence was (163.76±16.11). Among the dimensions of the quality of working life, the highest mean was recorded for the dimension of desire and work motivation (17.25±2.68) and the lowest mean was found for the dimension of problem solving (11.39±2.95). Among the dimensions of moral intelligence, the highest mean was obtained for the dimension of forgiveness (42.14±5.17), and the lowest mean was recorded for the integrity dimension (37.57±4.13). There was no significant relationship between the two variables of quality of working life and moral intelligence (P=0.051); however, the dimensions of participation (P=0.012) and communication (P=0.037) were associated with the overall score of intelligence.
Conclusion
Taking into account the facts that the encouragement of participation and communication plays an important role in improving, promoting, and strengthening the moral intelligence of individuals in organizations, and that a higher moral intelligence contributes greatly to improving the participation and communication in organizations, it was recommended that the policy makers and macro decision makers – those in the field of health and treatment, in particular – should improve the communication among employees and between employees and officials as well as encourage the participation of employees in, particularly, macro-decision-making and goal-setting processes, which may have improved the quality of working life and consequently promoted their moral intelligence in the organization.