Factors Affecting Nurses’ Moral Sensitivity: A Narrative Review Article

Moral sensitivity is the ability to evaluate the responses and feelings of others as well as the knowledge of how to act properly in a particular situation. Ethical sensitivity is the first step in making moral decisions. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the influential factors to increase the moral judgment of nurses. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting moral sensitivity.

This research is a narrative review study that were conducted by searching the articles in the SID information database, Iran Medex, Google scholar, PubMed, and Scopus. Articles were reviewed between 2000 and 2021. The keywords used in this study were Moral Sensitivity, Nurses, in Persian and English language. A total number of 33 articles were included in this study and reviewed. Finally 16 articles were thoughtfully evaluated.

The most important factors affecting nurses’ moral sensitivity include different types of intelligence including moral intelligence and individual intelligence, teaching the principles of professional ethics to nurses and the professional workplace of nurses. Demographic factors such as age, gender and education were demonstrated to be effective in some cases and some of the studies indicated demographic factors does not have relationship with moral sensitivity.

Discussion and Conclusion:

Considering that, moral sensitivity is the first step for moral decision-making and its distorting factors cause moral distress to nurses, identifying the affecting factors is necessary to increase the moral judgment of nurses. Health authorities should also apply the necessary measures to increase the moral sensitivity of nurses, such as continuous training and improving the status of nurses in stressful environments.