Advances in Nursing & Midwifery

Abstract

Abstract

Background and aim

High ethical reasoning ability is one of the main requirements of nursing profession. This ethical

reasoning should be improved in nursing student during educational period. It should be further

evolved during their independent clinical work as a nurse. Limited evidences are exist about the

level of ethical reasoning of nursing students and nurses in Iran. Therefore, the purpose of this study

was to compare the ethical reasoning of nursing students and nurses in Tabriz University of Medical

Sciences .

Materials and Methods

This descriptive-comparative study was performed on 115 nursing students and 269 nurses who

were selected by census. Nursing Dilemma Test NDT questionnaire was used for data collection. It

consists of 6 scenarios. Ethical reasoning score (Nursing Principled Thinking NP) was the sum of

scores of fifth and sixth levels of Kohlberg ethical development questionnaire. The scores varied

from 18 to 66. The data were analyzed using SPSS and by descriptive and inferential statistics.

Findings

Ethical reasoning score of nursing students (48.9±6.5; mean±SD) was significantly higher than the

score of nurses (46.6±6.7) (p=0.02). Also it was found that NP scores of nurses working in medical

wards are significantly higher than scores of other wards nurses (p=0.02). NP scores were declined

by increasing of clinical experience (p= 0.04).

Conclusion

Lower NP scores of nurses comparing with NP scores of nursing students is an alarm for nursing

managers and need a special attention.

Keywords

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Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.

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