Comparison of professional ethics score between nurses and students and investigating the associated causes

Background: Ethics is a curriculum subject, but it is also a manner of being a professional as well. It is necessary to increase the nurses’ ability in making ethical decisions and pay attention to academic training. Materials and Methods: This study is a descriptive research that was conducted on 127 nurses and nursing students to study the level of awareness of nurses and students about professional nursing ethics and to find the causes influencing such awareness. A nursing profession ethics questionnaire was used as the research tool. The data was then analyzed using SPSS16 statistical software through descriptive statistics, Chi-square, independent t-test, and Pearson methods. Results: There was no significant relationship between professional ethics score and personal details such as age, sex, academic semester, GPA, and being a nurse or student (p 0.05). However, in the students’ group, there was a significant relationship between an interest in the field of study and the ethics score (p 0.05). There was no significant relationship between the ethics score of students’ group and nurses’ group (p 0.05). The mean score of ethics of both groups of students and nurses was at a medium level. Discussion and Conclusion: According to the results of the study, moral judgment of both students and nurses’ groups in clinical settings was evaluated as medium level. This is considered insufficient for”morally demanding” jobs like nursing. Therefore, there is a need to increase the efforts in the field of ethics education and continuous assessment of the ethical performance of the nurses.