Abstract
BackgroundHigh disease burden and scarcity of healthcare resources present complex ethical dilemmas for nurses working in developing countries. We assessed nurses’ knowledge in ethics and their perceptions about Continuous Nurses’ Ethics Education (CNEE) for in-service nurses.MethodsUsing an anonymous, pre-tested self-administered questionnaire, we assessed nurses’ knowledge in basic ethics concepts at three regional hospitals in Uganda. Adequate knowledge was measured by a score ≥50% in the knowledge assessment test. Nurses’ perceptions on CNEE were assessed using a six-point Likert scale.ResultsOf 114 nurses, 91% were female; with mean age 44.7 (SD 10) years. Half were diploma, 47 (41%) certificates, 6 (5%) bachelors’ degrees and one masters’ level training. Overall, 18 (16%) scored ≥50% in the ethics knowledge test. Nurses with diploma or higher level of nursing training were less likely to fail the ethics knowledge than certificate-level nurses (OR 0.14, 95% CI: 0.02–0.7). Only 45% had ever attended at least one CNEE session and up to 93% agreed that CNEE is required to improve nurses’ ethics knowledge and practice.ConclusionsNurses exhibited low knowledge in ethics and positive attitudes towards CNEE. We recommend structured CNEE programs to address basic concepts in nursing ethics and their application in clinical practice.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1294-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
High disease burden, coupled with scarcity of healthcare resources present complex ethical issues for nurses working in developing countries
This paper reports on the evaluation of the ethics knowledge among nurses working at regional referral hospitals in Uganda as well as their attitudes on Continuous Nurses’ Ethics Education (CNEE) for nurses throughout their medical practice
A total of 114 nurses and midwives were surveyed from three regional referral hospitals
Summary
High disease burden and scarcity of healthcare resources present complex ethical dilemmas for nurses working in developing countries. We assessed nurses’ knowledge in ethics and their perceptions about Continuous Nurses’ Ethics Education (CNEE) for in-service nurses. High disease burden, coupled with scarcity of healthcare resources present complex ethical issues for nurses working in developing countries. This paper reports on the evaluation of the ethics knowledge among nurses working at regional referral hospitals in Uganda as well as their attitudes on Continuous Nurses’ Ethics Education (CNEE) for nurses throughout their medical practice. Our results are important to inform nurses’ training curricula as well as monitoring and evaluation activities about the need to re-emphasize ethics education and practice in nursing health care delivery
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