The Effect of Role-Modeled Professional Ethics Instruction on the Nursing and Midwifery Students' Moral Performance: A Semi-Experimental Study

Professional ethics instruction could guarantee the ethical performance of nurses and midwives. This study aimed to investigate the effect of role-modeled professional ethics instruction on the moral performance of nursing and midwifery students.

This semi-experimental single-group before-after study was conducted on two separate groups of nursing and midwifery students who were selected using the census method. The intervention was role-modeled professional ethics instruction in six sessions for each group (5 cases per group) in different wards. The required data were collected using the nurses' moral performance questionnaire and midwifery codes of ethics questionnaire (online version) administered before and one month after the intervention. Data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 16).

A total of 59 students were included in the study. There was a positive and significant correlation before and after role-modeled instruction as an intervention in terms of moral performance scores in the nursing students' group (P=0.000 r=0.554) and an insignificant positive correlation in the midwifery students' group (P=0.23 r=0.324). Furthermore, there was an insignificant poor correlation between the final scores of the ethics course and moral performance scores before and after role-modeled instruction in both groups. Male nursing students had better moral performance after the intervention, and age did not affect moral performance.

The moral performance of nursing students increased significantly after role-modeled instruction. Further studies are recommended to investigate the effectiveness of different instructional methods on strengthening the moral performance of nursing and midwifery students.