The effect of ethical motivational program on nurses’ moral courage in Mashhad’s military hospitals

Movie show is a method that can increase the level of nurses’ moral courage by creating situations similar to those that involve professional health workers and observing the other nurses clinical experiences. This study aimed to investigate the effect of motivational ethics program on the moral courage of nurses in Mashhad’s military hospitals.

This research was a semi-experimental study, done in 2018. Two military hospitals were selected by design and 20 nurses of each hospital were randomly selected. Both the intervention and control group included 20 nurses. Demographic form and Sekerka’s Moral Courage Questionnaire were completed three times: before, immediately and one month after the intervention by nurses in the two groups. An ethical motivational program – which included teaching the nursing ethics by lecture - group decision method and a movie show to increase their moral courage to deal with ethical issues and decision making - was performed for the intervention group over two consecutive days. There was no intervention for the control group.

At baseline, the moral courage score in the intervention group was 68.05±11.99 and in the control group was 65.50±15.74. Before the intervention, both groups had a moderate moral courage score and no significant difference was observed (P=0.568). The moral courage score in the first post-test was 78.77±5.50 in the intervention group and 65.05±15.43 in the control group (P>0.001). The intervention group at this stage gained a high moral courage score. The moral courage score in the second posttest in the intervention group was 79.77±5.37, which was a minor increase, and the control group achieved 63.75±13.23 which showed a slight decrease (P<0.001). The moral courage score and all its dimensions in the three stages in the intervention group were significantly different (P<0.001) and in the control group there was no significant difference (P=0.278).

The results of this study showed that ethics training increases the amount of nurses’ moral courage. Therefore, the researchers suggest that nursing ethics training sessions be included in nursing education in-service training courses.