Assessment of moral Reasoning Ability of the Nurses in dealing with moral dilemmas

The nurses need to possess moral reasoning besides the clinical skills. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the moral reasoning ability of the registered nurses in academic hospitals affiliated by Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd in 2012.
This cross-sectional study was carried out on 360 registered nurses at 4 Educational hospitals through convenient sampling. Data were collected by using Nursing Dilemma Test questionnaire. Spss software version 18 was applied to analyze the data.
Moral Considerations: The aims of the study and confidentiality of the data were explained to the participants and their verbal consent for participation in the study were obtained.
Findings: The mean score of the nurse's moral reasoning was (44/1±6/15). No significant relationship was found between the moral reasoning ability of the nurses and the frequency of their exposure with each of moral dilemmas (P>0.05, r=0.013). There was no significant relationship between the mean score of the moral reasoning and the participant's age and work experience (P>0.05). There is not significant relation between mean score of the participants with their sex and work place (P>0.05).
Since the nurse's moral reasoning ability in the current study was moderate, and given the importance of nurse's abilities in dealing with moral dilemmas, and also, its effect on delivering optimal care for patients, we suggest planning and putting into action proper strategies.