BackgroundHealthcare ethics is neglected in clinical practice in LMICs such as Nepal. The main objective of this study was to assess the current status of knowledge, attitude and practice of healthcare ethics among resident doctors and ward nurses in a tertiary teaching hospital in Nepal.MethodsThis was a cross sectional study conducted among resident doctors and ward nurses in the largest tertiary care teaching hospital of Nepal during January- February 2016 with a self-administered questionnaire. A Cramer’s V value was assessed to (...) ascertain the strength of the differences in the variables between doctors and nurses. Association of variables were determined by Chi square and statistical significance was considered if p value was less than 0.05.ResultsOur study demonstrated that a significant proportion of the doctors and nurses were unaware of major documents of healthcare ethics: Hippocratic Oath, Nuremberg code and Helsinki Declaration. A high percentage of respondents said that their major source of information on healthcare ethics were lectures, books, and journals. Attitude of doctors and nurses were significantly different in 9 out of 22 questions pertaining to different aspects of healthcare ethics. More nurses had agreement than doctors on the tested statements pertaining to different aspects of healthcare ethics except for need of integration of medical ethics in ungraduate curricula,paternalistic attitude of doctor was disagreed more by doctors. Notably, only few doctors stood in support of physician-assisted dying.ConclusionsSignificant proportion of doctors and nurses were unaware of three major documents on healthcare ethics which are the core principles in clinical practice. Provided that a high percentage of respondents had motivation for learning medical ethics and asked for inclusion of medical ethics in the curriculum, it is imperative to avail information on medical ethics through subscription of journals and books on ethics in medical libraries in addition to lectures and training at workplace on medical ethics which can significantly improve the current paucity of knowledge on medical ethics. (shrink)

The influence of conscience on nurses in terms of guilt has frequently been described but its impact on care has received less attention. The aim of this study was to describe nurses' conceptions of the influence of conscience on the provision of inpatient care. The study employed a phenomenographic approach and analysis method. Fifteen nurses from three hospitals in western Sweden were interviewed. The results showed that these nurses considered conscience to be an important factor in the exercise of their (...) profession, as revealed by the descriptive categories: conscience as a driving force; conscience as a restricting factor; and conscience as a source of sensitivity. They perceived that conscience played a role in nursing actions involving patients and next of kin, and was an asset that guided them in their efforts to provide high quality care. (shrink)

Today, nurses are required to have knowledge and awareness concerning professional values as standards to provide safe and high-quality ethical care. Nurses’ perspective on professional values affects decision-making and patient care. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the importance of professional values from clinical nurses’ perspective. The present cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016 in four educational hospitals of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Data were collected via the Persian version of Nursing Professional Values Scale-Revised by Weis and (...) Schank. Sampling was conducted through the use of stratified random sampling method and 250 clinical nurses participated in the study. Results indicated that the total score of the nurses’ professional values was high.. From nurses’ perspective items such as “Maintaining confidentiality of patients” and “Safeguarding patients’ right to privacy” had more importance; however, “Recognizing role of professional nursing associations in shaping healthcare policy” and “Participating in nursing research and/or implementing research findings appropriate to practice had less importance. A statistically significant relationship was observed between NPVS-R mean scores and nurses’ age, work experience as well as participation in professional ethical training. Although the total score related to the clinical nurses’ perspective on professional values was high, the importance of certain values was at a lower level. Owing to the emerging ethical challenges, it is indispensable to design educational programs in order to improve nurses’ awareness and understanding of the comprehensive importance of professional values. Furthermore, it is recommended that mixed methods studies should be conducted in order to design an instrument to evaluate the use of values in nursing practice. (shrink)