الفهرس 
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Abstract
Nursing faculty members are considered owners of a sacred message for teaching and nurturing generations and moving the nursing profession forward as well. However, a growing body of research indicates that faculty members are subjected to physical and mental stressors and that experiencing such stressors endangers their mental wellbeing, compromising the quality of the educational process and students’ satisfaction as well. Therefore, it is important for faculty members to have a group of positive abilities and characteristics that help them face and overcome pressures successfully while maintaining and improving mental wellbeing. One of the behaviors that promotes mental health is mindfulness, which involves intentionally focusing attention in the present moment and observing how one’s experience is developing without judgment. Spiritual intelligence is the ability to apply and embody spiritual qualities in ways that enhance their daily functioning and wellbeing. Literature has shown that spiritual intelligence and mindfulness are relevant to and affect individuals’ mental health.
This study aimed to assess the level of mindfulness, spiritual intelligence, and mental health among nursing faculty members. And to identify the relationship between mindfulness, spiritual intelligence, and mental health among nursing faculty members.
Materials & Method
Study design and setting: This study utilized a descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational research design. It was conducted at the three different nursing faculties, namely, Alexandria, Damanhur, and Matrouh.
Tools of the study: Four tools were used for data collection:
Tool I: A Socio-demographic characteristics Questionnaire.
This tool was developed by the researcher to elicit data about the studied nursing faculty member’s socio-demographic characteristics such as age, sex, marital status, academic position, monthly income, academic department, and faculty.
Tool II: The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS).
The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) was developed by Brown & Ryan (2003) to assess the level of dispositional mindfulness. It consists of 15 self-reported items. Each item is rated on 6-point likert scale. The total score ranged from 15–90, with higher scores indicating a higher level of mindfulness and lower scores indicating a lower level of mindfulness.
Tool III: Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI-24).
This scale was developed by David King (2008). It consists of 24 items to measure the level of spiritual intelligence. Each item rated on five-point likert scale. Total score ranged from 0 to 96. Higher scores indicating higher level of spiritual intelligence .The scale empirically assesses four dimensions namely; critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. Total score ranged from 0 to 96 with higher scores indicating higher level of mindfulness and low scores indicating low level of mindfulness.
Tool IV: Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS).
The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) was developed by Tennant et al., (2007) to measure the level of mental wellbeing. It comprises 14- items. The participants are asked to rate their own feelings and thoughts over the last 2 weeks on a five-point Likert scale. The total score ranged from 14 to 70. Higher scores indicating higher level of mental wellbeing.
Methods:
A written official approval for conducting the study was obtained from the Research Ethical Committee of Faculty of Nursing- Alexandria University – Alexandria, Egypt.
A written official permissions were obtained from official authorities including; Dean of Nursing Faculty at Alexandria University, Dean of Nursing Faculty at Damanhur University and Dean of Nursing Faculty at Matrouh University to collect data from nursing faculty members.
Tool I (A Socio-demographic characteristics questionnaire) was developed by the researcher after review of literature.
The Arabic versions of tool (MAAS), tool III (SISRI-24), and tool IV (WEMWBS) were tested for their content validity and their congruency with the Egyptian culture by seven experts in the field of psychiatric and mental health nursing. Modifications were done accordingly.
A pilot study was carried out on 50 nursing faculty members and it proved that the study tools were clear and applicable. These members were excluded from the actual study subjects.
Tool II, III, and IV were tested for their Validity using Pearson Correlation Coefficient between the score of each item and total score of the scale on 50 nursing faculty members. The validity of tools II, III and IV in which the values of all correlation coefficients were high and ranging between 0.424- 0.777, 0.825- 0.926, and 0.336- 0.756 respectively.
Tool II, III, and IV were tested for their reliability using the Cronbach’s alpha test on 50 nursing faculty members. Tool II (MAAS) proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha= 0. 898). Tool III (SISRI-24) proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha= 0.938), and their subscale axes (CET, PMP, TA and CSE) proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha= 0.818, 0.898, 0.798 and 0.868 respectively). Tool IV (WEMWBS) proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha= 0.841).
The researcher attended to each assigned faculty 3 days/weeks i.e.: the researcher started with Matrouh University then Alexandria University and Damanhur University.
The researcher attended to the head of each department in order to obtain their permission for approaching and distributing the study questionnaires on the assigned staff of this department.
The researcher explained the purpose of study to eligible faculty members and emphasized their rights to refuse participation or withdraw from the study.
The study questionnaires were copied with cover letter explaining purposes of study and distributed in hard copies hand by hand either before or after lectures or clinical training. In order to facilitate filling of questionnaires, pens were attached with it.
The study questionnaires were uploaded through an electronic form due to COVID19 Pandemic and sent the access link via the faculty members’ E-mails and Whats App in order to apply infection control precautions of the emerging coronavirus disease (COVID-19).But the response rate was very low (less than 10%), so decided excluding electronic form and completed the study with hard copies hand by hand.
Each staff member was interviewed on an individual basis to go through the study. The questionnaires take around from 20 to 30 minutes to be filled out.
The data were collected by distributing 450 questionnaire to the nursing faculty members who meet the inclusion criteria and after collecting the questionnaires from the faculty members, it was ascertained that the answers to items were completed and the incomplete questionnaires were excluded .A total of 351 completed questionnaires were collected. The response rate was 78 %.
The data were collected over a period of three months, starting from 16th November 2021 to 18th February 2022.
The following are the main results yielded by the study:
I: Socio- demographic characteristics:
- The age of the studied nursing faculty members ranged between 23 to 80 years with a mean age of 35.43±8.54 years and that about two third (63.5%) of them their age ranged between 25 to less than 35 years.
- The majority of the studies subjects (91.5%) were females, fewer than three quarters of them (71.5%) were married.
- Nearly one quarter of the studies subjects were demonstrators and enrolled at medical surgical nursing department (24.8% and 23.1% respectively).
- More than one third (41.9%) of the studies subjects have monthly income ranging from 4000 to less than 6000 Egyptian pounds and about half of them (47.0%) were belonging to faculty of nursing, Alexandria University .
II: The level of mindfulness, spiritual intelligence and mental wellbeing among nursing faculty members:
- More than half of the studied subjects (53%) demonstrated moderate level of mindfulness. While, 27.10% of them had low level of mindfulness and only 19.90% had high level of mindfulness.
- Less than half of the studied subjects (47%) demonstrated high level of spiritual intelligence. Less than half of the studied subjects (45.3%) have high level of personal meaning production (PMP), with a mean score of 13.06 ± 4.44.Those who have high level of transcendental Awareness (TA) constitute 42.2%, with a mean score of 17.93 ± 5.21. However, more than half of the studied subjects demonstrated moderate level of spiritual intelligence at both conscious state expansion (CSE) and critical existential thinking (CET) subscales (55.3% and 54.4%, respectively).
- More than half of the studied subjects (51.6%) had moderate level of mental wellbeing, and 29% reported high level of mental wellbeing. Only 19.4% had low level of mental wellbeing.
III: The correlation between mindfulness, spiritual intelligence and mental health among nursing faculty members revealed that:
- The results revealed that a highly significant positive correlations were found between the mindfulness, total spiritual intelligence and the mental wellbeing (r=0.498, P<0.001, and r =0.500, P<0.001, respectively).
- The Mindfulness significantly positively correlated with spiritual intelligence subscales as critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion (r=0.401, p<0.001, r=0.509, p=0.005, r=0.454, p<0.001, and r= 0.467, p<0.001, respectively).
- The spiritual intelligence was significantly positively correlated with mental wellbeing (r=0.544, p <0.001).
- The mental wellbeing significantly positively correlated with spiritual intelligence subscales as critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion (r=0.399, p<0.001, r=0.561, p<0.001, r=0.522, p<0.001, and r=0.520, p<0.001, respectively).
Accordingly, the following are the main recommendations of the present study:
- The aspects of mindfulness and spiritual intelligence should be encompassed in the theoretical and practical aspects of master and doctoral nursing curricula to enhance their awareness of mindfulness and spiritual intelligence and how they improve their mental wellbeing and the application of these in their daily life.
- Implementation of training programs and workshops aimed at increasing the awareness of nursing faculty members about mindfulness and spiritual intelligence and their impact on mental health.
- Further studies are required to evaluate the effects of implementing educational intervention programs to develop and enhance faculty members’ spiritual intelligence.