Factors affecting nurses' support of the patient and professional ethics: A review study

Patient’s support is one of the most controversial issues of nursing profession in recent decades. Observing the standards of professional ethics in nursing practice leads to improvement of nursing services, which needs to be considered seriously in order to improve patientschr('39') well-being. Nurses face a number of challenges to support patient. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors affecting nurseschr('39') support of the patient and professional ethics.

In this review study, the key words of professional ethics, patient’s support, nursing staff, hospital and hospitalized patients were searched in SID, Magiran, Iran Medex, Google Scholar and PubMed. The studies were reviewed in two stages based on inclusion and exclusion criteria so that the title and abstract were firstly reviewed, and the whole article was secondly reviewed. Finally, 28 articles were selected in the study.

The environmental-organizational, individual-care and managerial factors were identified as effective ones on patient’s support and professional ethics. Responsibility of nurses, lack of time and work pressure of nurses, shortage of personnel, lack of nurseschr('39') support, nurseschr('39') inadequate knowledge of support role, medicocracy, limited communication, support risks and lack of motivation were the most important factors influencing nurse’s support of the patient and professional ethics.

Several factors affect the nursechr('39')s support of the patient and professional ethics. These factors include environmental-organizational, individual-care and managerial factors. Therefore, in order to facilitate patient’s support and observe the professional ethics of managers, the health planners and nurses should pay more attention to these areas.