Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

In order to improve service quality, there are various committees in hospitals including ethics committees, which may be among the most important and necessary establishments within the health care system. Hospital ethics committees are designed to ensure proper clinical decision-making and are responsible for monitoring the ethical provision of services in hospitals. They also aim to assist patients and health care professionals without interfering in the physician-patient relationship. This article was part of a comprehensive review study performed in 2014 and 2015 by searching database not restricted to any particular period of time. The keywords used to search the sources available in English included “hospital ethics committee”, “healthcare ethics committee”, “clinical ethics committee”, and “institutional ethics committee”. Since ethical counseling is one of the main tasks of hospital ethics committees, their existence in hospitals appears to be essential. There have been few studies on the functions of hospital ethics committees in Iran, and it seems necessary to investigate the activities of these committees in the country. Moreover, it is recommended that the Ministry of Health and Medical Education take more serious actions to establish and monitor ethics committees in hospitals throughout the country.

Empathy is a necessary condition for an effective nursing care. An empathetic relationship between nurse and patients leads to positive treatment outcomes and moral sensitivity among students in clinical and educational environments. This study was conducted in 2014 to determine the level of empathy among nursing students and its relationship with their demographic data. A cross-sectional study (Descriptive analysis) was undertaken using paper-based versions of the Jefferson Scale of nursing Empathy. By using stratified random sampling, 320 undergraduate students from the first to forth-year of their program in Tehran University of Medical Sciences were selected.

The result shows that participants reported good empathy levels, and the average of empathy score was 103 ±11. Empathy scores increased with increasing academic year. There was a significant relationship between sex and empathy. Students who did not passed the effective communication course scored higher than their counterparts. Empathy score increased with age, and older students recorded higher scores than their younger colleagues. Single and employed students recorded higher empathy scores than married and unemployed students.

There were no significant differences between the place of living (dormitory versus personal house), Interest in nursing education as well as their marks.

Regarding the relationship between empathy with students’ academic years, the finding offers insights into the importance of incorporating and promoting empathy in nursing curricula from the first year of training.

In addition, it is necessary to pay more attention to teaching empathy to male students.