Majid Hassanpoor, Mohammadali Hosseini, Massod Fallahi Khoshknab, Abbas Abbaszadeh,
Volume 4, Issue 5 (10-2011)
Abstract
Making decisions for recipients of health care while offering clinical care is an important part of nurses’ responsibilities. In order to ensure patient satisfaction, nurses are obligated to observe ethical standards in the decision-making process. This paper aimed to determine the effect of teaching professional ethical principles on ethical sensitivity in nurses’ decision-making.
In this semi-empirical study, 80 Social Security nurses were selected through purposive sampling and were then randomly placed in two groups of 40 each, the intervention group and the control group. Research tool was the Ethical Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire for decision-making, the validity of which was assessed using content validity, and whose reliability was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.83 for internal consistency. At first the ethical sensitivity in decision-making was evaluated in both groups, and then an educational workshop on nursing ethics was held for the intervention group every other week the workshop consisted of 4 three-hour sessions, and upon completion of this workshop, both groups filled in the questionnaire once more, and data were analyzed using SPSS software.
There was no significant difference between the average ethical sensitivity in decision-making of the two groups before the intervention after the intervention, however, the difference was meaningful (P = 0.001). Moreover, the average ethical sensitivity in decision-making of the intervention group was significantly different after the intervention (P = 0.001).
Based on the findings of this study, teaching nursing ethical principles has a positive effect on nurses’ ethical sensitivity in decision-making. It is therefore recommended that this educational program be offered to nursing students and health care staff.
