The most important nursing professional values: The perspectives of nurses who work at selected hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Nursing practice is influenced by nurse's precived professional values. A small number of studies have been focused to measure professional values in nursing, whereas most of them focused on measuring values of nursing students. This study aimed to explore how nurses prioritize professional values.
Methods & Materials: In this cross-sectional study, the professional values of nurses who were working at hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, were investi-gated. A simple random sampling method was used and 127 nurses randomly selected to participate in this study. A two-part questionnaire was used to collect the data. The first part included demographic variables and the second part included the Nursing Professional Values Scale-Revised (NPVS-R).
The mean scores of the NPVS-R items on the five point Likert-type scales ranged from 2.89 to 4.32. The most five important professional values statements identified by participants were maintain patient's confidentiality, maintain competency in area of practice, seek additional education to update knowledge and skills, act as a patient advocator, protect patients; moral andlegal rights, re-spectively. The least important identified statement was participating in peer review.
Findings of this study indicated that nurses are aware about importance of professional values and have been focused to clinical-related elements such as ethical values. Further investiga-tions are needed to evaluate how they actualize these values in practice.