MORAL ASPECT OF AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP IN DIETETICS STUDENTS

Little has been reported regarding the level of students' authentic leadership (AL) in a medical and health sciences universities. We still do not know much about AL skills in dietetics students (DS), especially about moral aspect. The aim of this study was to look for potential determinants of moral aspect of AL skills in DS. There were analysed: transparency, balanced processing, perfectionism and general self-efficacy. The general characteristics of DS in the context of AL skills was also made. The study was conducted with 326 DS. Data was collected from April 2018 to October 2018 with the use of the paperand-pencil interviewing (PAPI) method in Medical University of Warsaw (MUW) (convenience sampling). Following research tools were used: Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R), General Self-Efficacy Scale. The STATISTICA program, version 13.1 (StatSoft Inc.) was used. In DS, moral aspect of the AL skills positively correlated with transparency (r=0.52, p<0.05), balanced processing (r=0.47, p<0.05) and two dimensions of perfectionism - standards (r=0.26, p<0.05) and order (r=0.11, p<0.05). The relationship between self-efficacy and moral aspect of AL skills was also noted (r=0.23, p<0.05). A special curriculum must be developed for strengthening the leadership skill in context of dieticians clinical practice. In the development of AL skills, special attention should be paid to strengthening the level of adaptive perfectionism and self-efficacy. (C) 2019 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK