Ethical competence in nursing: A concept analysis with Walker and Avans approach

Nurses as the most abundant health care staffs are expected to provide safe and accurate nursing services with high ethical competence. In order to determine which nurses are ethically competent we need to have a clear definition for various aspects of this concept. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the concept of ethical competence in nursing.

Walker and Avant eight-step method was used for clarifying the concept of "ethical competence". Using “nursing” and “ethical competence” keywords, electronic databases including Pubmed, SCOPUS, CINAHL, OVID, Persian Scientific Information Database (SID), Iranian Research Institute for Science and Technology (IranDOC) and MAGIRAN publication database were searched without time limit based on the inclusion criteria, and 22 studies were included in review.

The nursing Ethical competence was defined. Conceptual defining features included moral personality, moral judgment, moral awareness, moral motivation, moral sensitivity, moral courage, moral care, and suggestive definition of moral competence, including mastery of moral characteristics, ability to combine and organize them in nursing positions, with responsibility for it.

A Review the concept analysis of ethical competence in this article can provide an objective image, comprehensive understanding of this concept and be effective step to educate, reinforce, measure, and ultimately development of that to improve the quality and safety of nursing service.