Professional and Ethical Values in Providing Nursing Care from Nurse's Perspective

The recognition of professional values underlies a significant part of nurses’ professional performance. Given the fundamental role played by nurses in the health system, it is highly important to provide conditions for the development and perfection of these values. The aim of this study was to examine the professional and ethical values related to nursing care provision from the perspective of nurses working in the teaching hospitals affiliated with Gonabad University of Medical Sciences.
This cross-sectional study was carried out on 170 Nurses in educational hospitals of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected by using a questionnaire containing demographic information and Shank and Weise’s Nursing Professional Values Scale-Revised (NPVS-R), which measured five aspects (caring, activism, professionalism, trust, and justice). Data were analyzed, using descriptive statistics and statistical tests, including t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation via SPSS version 20.
Among the components of nursing professional and ethical values, the highest mean score was related to “caring” at 3.96 ± 0.57 and the lowest mean score was related to “activism” at 3.63 ± 0.70. The total mean score of the questionnaire was 100.01 ± 14.05. The aspects of the professional and ethical values were prioritized from the nurses’ perspective as caring, justice, trust, professionalism, and activism, respectively.
The results show that nurses consider those nursing values important which are directly related to their job. Therefore, understanding the importance of certain aspects of the professional and ethical values which are related to the nurses’ indirect tasks requires further support, and it is necessary to teach all of the aspects of professional and ethical values during nursing education.