Investigating the Relationship between Nurses’ Moral Sensitivity and Patients’ Satisfaction with the Quality of Nursing Care

Abstract

Patient satisfaction is considered as an important indicator of the quality and effectiveness of health system. Moral sensitivity plays an important role in how professional responsibilities and moral decisions are made by nurses. This study aims to investigate the relationship between nurses' moral sensitivity and patients' satisfaction with quality of nursing care. This study is descriptive and analytic. First, nurses in internal, surgical and special wards were selected through census method. Then, patients were selected using quota sampling to the ratio of nurses from each section. Data were collected through Demographic Questionnaires, Patient Satisfaction Instrument and Moral Sensitive Questions. Data were analyzed using SPSS 23. There was a significant positive correlation between nurses' moral sensitivity and patients' satisfaction with quality of nursing care (P < 0.05). The majority of patients (70.5) had moderate level of satisfaction with quality of nursing care. 93.5 of nurses had high moral sensitivity. There was no statistically significant relationship between nurses' moral sensitivity and variables of sex, location of work, marital status, type of responsibility and work shift. Relationship between patient satisfaction and type of admission ward was significant (P = 0.03). Increased moral sensitivity in nurses is effective on improving patients' satisfaction with the quality of nursing care. It is suggested to conduct further research with larger sample size and investigate other factors affecting patient satisfaction in order to ensure the generalizability of research results.