Use of Professional Ethics among Nurses Working in Alzahra Hospital in Isfahan: From Patients’ Perspective

Since professional ethics are important parts of treatment process, lack of attention to the right principles of using these could lead to many problems including improper and unsuccessful treatment, and also legal dilemmas. Adherence to professional ethics in nursing from patients’ point of view could reveal unclear issues and common errors; therefore, the present study was conducted to examine the degree nurses working in Alzahra Hospital adhere to professional ethics in practice from patients’ perspective.

This is a descriptive-analytical study performed in 2015 among 244 randomly selected patients being discharged from various wards of the Alzahra Hospital. A self-structured questionnaire was used to measure use of professional ethics among nurses. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive and analytical tests.

The mean age of participants was 45.25±7.1 ranging from 14 to 93. 123 women (50.4%) and 121 men (49.6%) were included. The mean score of professional ethics adherence among nurses from patients’ point of view was 95.6±17.9 ranging from 44 to 125. Based on this result, use of professional ethics was estimated to be excellent among 111 individuals (45.5%), optimal among 96 persons (39.3%) and moderate among 37 nurses (15.2%). Ethical Considerations: participation in the study was optional and informed written consent was obtained from patients to participate in the study. In addition, the information confidentiality of the participants was observed.

The results of this study indicate that observance of the nurses’ professional ethics in the research environment is at an acceptable level and the important causes includes of the educational environment of the research, the provision of educational programs and retraining by the nursing system and continuous monitoring of nursing personnel.