Ethical climate governed on hospital environments from the perspective of nurses employed in intensive care units

Nurses of intensive care units are continuously exposed to ethical tension due to their specific working environment. Distress level of Iranian nurses who work in intensive care units has been less examined so far. Therefore, the aim of this study is evaluating the ethical atmosphere governed on hospital environments from the perspective of nurses employed in intensive care departments.This descriptive study has been accomplished at hospitals associated to the Medical University of Tabriz, in the cities of Tabriz and Maragheh in 1388. The individuals of this research were all nurses employed in adult intensive care departments of mentioned hospitals who were selected through census sampling. The hospital ethical climate survey: This questionnaire has been developed in 1991, by Lenz & Stickland and Waltz and contains 45 options in 5 options Likert-scale, which its options are different from "is always quite true" to "not always quite right". In this questionnaire the minimum score is 45 and the maximum is 225. Statistical software "SPSS", descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analysis of the findings.120 nurses participated in this study. Most evaluated nurses were married women, and had a bachelor's degree of nursing. In addition, the average age of nurses was 32/91±4/57 years old. Total clinical work experience of nurses in nursing was 7/93±4/02 years and the clinical work experience of nurses in intensive care units was 5/34±3/32 years. It was found that 118 (98/3) nurses found the environment in appropriate but only from 2 (1/7) nurse's point of view this environment has been in good (acceptable) level.The results indicate high level of ethical tensions among the evaluated nurses, which calls for more attention of nursing managers.