Nurse Managers' Moral Self Concept and Ethical Sensitivity

Abstract

Changes in nursing concepts and health requirements, increased roles of nurses, increases in number of nursing clients, and changes in values of nurses themselves give rise to a variety of ethical conflicts that nurses must personally face in certain ethical situations, and these conflicts require high standard of ethics to resolve (Lee & Bang, 1984). Therefore, nurses must be able to justify their reasons to select an action and disregard other choices even though the selected action may not be a satisfactory solution for a difficult problem. Even though there is neither absolute nor perfect answer, a choice with better and more advantages must be selected, and for such choice to be made, serious ethical considerations and judgment must be indicated. For this to be possible, nurses must be sensitive to ethical concepts, and education at nursing scenes must concentrate on conducting ethical activity. However, a program for increasing ethical sensitivity cannot be completed with short-term education or training. Thus, such program will require searching for a new method to change nurses’ beliefs or values. Greipp (1992) reported that self-consciousness of indiNurse Managers’ Moral Self Concept and Ethical Sensitivity