A Study of the Awareness of the Nursing Students with the Ethical Codes of Clinical Care at Jahrom University of Medical Sciences

Afifeh Rahmanian Koshkaki¹, Somayeh Ramezanli*² and Marzieh Kargar Jahromi³

¹Medical-Surgical Nursing, Jahrom University of Medical Science, Jahrom, Iran.

²Medical-Surgical Nursing, Faculty Member of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom,Iran.

³Community Health Nursing, Faculty Member, Jahrom University of Medical Science, Jahrom, Iran.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/2373

ABSTRACT: As an essential part of nursing, nurse ethics can be defined as the professional ethical codes that nurses must adhere to while providing care. One of the major concerns in nurse education is improving nurses' ethical performance. The present study aims to assess the Awareness of the nursing students with the ethical codes of clinical care at Jahrom University of Medical sciences. This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016 on 85 third- and fourth-year nursing students at Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom, south of Iran. Data were collected using a questionnaire based on Iranian Nurses' Ethical Codes: Nurses and Clinical Care. The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a number of experts, and its reliability was proved through retest. The questionnaire was designed to be self-administered; for data analysis, SPSS v.15 was employed. 49.4% of the participants were female, 48.1% were male, 75.3% were single, 22.2% were married, 50.6% were junior, and 33.3% were senior nursing students. 67.9% of the respondents rated nurses' Awareness with ethical codes as average, 27.2% as unsatisfactory, and 4.9% as satisfactory. The mean score and standard deviation of the nursing students' Awareness with ethical codes was found to be 56.13±11.Based on the statistical test of chi-square, the relationship between the students' genders and Awareness with ethical codes was insignificant (p=0.78). Moreover, the results of Pearson's correlationcoefficient showed that the relationship between the students' ages and Awareness with clinical ethical codes was insignificant (p=0.65). The findings of the study show that the majority of students have only average or unsatisfactory Awareness with clinical ethical codes; hence, the importance of teaching nursing ethical codes to nursing students at college.

KEYWORDS: Nursing Student; Awareness; Ethical Code

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