Investigating the relationship between moral sensitivity and attitude towards euthanasia in nursing students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Euthanasia is one of the most controversial issues in medical ethics and one of the ten major ethical challenges in medicine and health sciences. The present study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between moral sensitivity and attitudes toward euthanasia among nursing students at Birjand University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Birjand University of Medical Sciences has four nursing schools. Cluster sampling method was used for selection of samples. After sampling Ferdows nursing school was selected. Nursing students of Ferdows School were 156 person which 144 participated in the study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Students completed demographic information questionnaire, moral sensitivity questionnaire and euthanasia attitude questionnaire. Data were entered into SPSS software version 19 using descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Findings of this study showed that among nursing students, the mean score of moral sensitivity was 59.59 ± 11.21 and was moderate. The mean score of attitudes towards euthanasia was 0.981 ± 0.336. In addition, according to the results, correlation test showed that there is a significant direct but weak relationship between moral sensitivity and attitude to euthanasia in students (P < 0.01, R = 0.219). According to the findings of the present study, moral sensitivity as a scientific concept is one of the determining factors in attitudes toward euthanasia, but other factors can also affect nurses' attitudes toward euthanasia, which should be investigated and determined in future research.