Abstract
Whereas nursing profession helps the well and the sick regain independence as rapidly as possible, nursing ethics education provides the basis for effective professional practice.Objectives: This study sought to identify factors affecting nursing ethics education and to describe impact of nursing ethics education on nursing practice. Method: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted, and two sets of questionnaires were developed and administered, one to 80 final year nursing students, the other to 60 nursing teachers in four universities. The questionnaires had 18 and 21 question items respectively covering demography of the respondents, knowledge from ethics education, factors affecting ethics education and impact of ethics education on nursing practice. Nominal scale data were collected and analyzed on a Microsoft Excel spread sheet. Frequencies and percentages of responses were calculated and tabulated under question categories.Results: Response rate was 86.3% for students and 51.7% for teachers. Although nursing ethics education is provided as a whole semester course, 51% of students and 80% of the teachers erroneously understand ethics as adherence to professional code of conduct. Even so 70% of both respondent groups were prepared to practice effective nursing. Meanwhile 82% of the students and 53% of teachers were of the view that professional negligence is a major ethical issue in practice. Conclusion: The nursing profession is committed to providing ethical practice, but the practitioners and their trainees lack the correct knowledge of what ethics really means. Due to this incorrect knowledge undue attention is being given to professional negligence. It is a challenge and may be giving rise to a protectionist practice. The inclusion of specialists in ethics or moral philosophy to teach nursing ethics as well as the adoption of dialogic and case study methods of teaching will avoid these challenges and enhance the proper understanding and application of principles and theories of ethics in nursing practice.
Highlights
Nursing duties and responsibilities involve decision-making that are guided by professional ethics
The study observed good knowledge of nursing ethics among the participants, authors still reported results that suggest that nurses still need to understand the relationship and limitations between ethics, hospital policy and legal issues relating to nursing practice
This is because in the field of health care nursing ethics like medical ethics falls within the domain of the discipline or department of public health, and since the duty of nursing care is both legal and moral, nursing ethics which is about morality in care can as well be provided from that department and other appropriate departments like philosophy or public policy and law
Summary
Nursing duties and responsibilities involve decision-making that are guided by professional ethics. For instance after examining the health care climate in the early part of this century Woods (2005) observed that nurses may not be fully prepared to “deliver the goods” for their patients This according to the author is because evaluated research projects in nursing ethics show that expected practice-based improvements were still elusive. It is clear that through formal education the nurse has developed multiple roles in the life of individuals, families, communities and the society at large This function of the nurse is not static but dynamic, and keeps varying with the changing concepts of disease causation, science, technology and changing moral attitudes. In performing their functions nurses have to demonstrate values that reflect in their commitment to respect, promote, protect and uphold the fundamental rights of the people who are either recipients or providers of nursing and health care.This study sought to identify factors limiting nursing ethics education from impacting more effectively on nursing practice as well as describe nursing ethics education and practice from the opinion of multi-institutional participants
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