The relationship amongst ethical position, religiosity and self-identified culture in student nurses

Abstract

Background/purpose: Research from other disciplines demonstrates that ethical position, idealism, or relativism predicts ethical decision-making. Individuals from diverse cultures ascribe to various religious beliefs and studies have found that religiosity and culture affect ethical decision-making. Moreover, little literature exists regarding undergraduate nursing students’ ethical position; no studies have been conducted in the United States on students’ ethical position, their self-identified culture, and intrinsic religiosity despite an increase in the diversity of nursing students across the United States. Participants and Research Context Objectives: The study’s two aims were to determine the relationship of self-identified culture, religiosity, and ethics position of undergraduate nursing student and whether students’ level of education and past ethics courses taken related to idealism. Two hundred and twelve volunteer undergraduate students participated. Research design: A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed for participants who completed the Ethical Position Questionnaire, The intrinsic subscale of the Religious Orientation Scale, and a Demographic, Cultural, Ethnicity Form. To test the five hypotheses, analyses included t-tests, correlations, and ANOVA. Ethical Considerations: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Adelphi University. Results: Idealism and intrinsic religiosity were significantly related. Differences were observed for intrinsic religiosity and idealism for cultural identity and cultural dimensions such as parents’ place of birth, and if participants were US born. Students’ level of education or participation in past courses on ethics did not influence idealism. Conclusions: The study’s findings were similar to most of the research from other disciplines on culture, ethics position, and religiosity. Generic courses on ethics taken prior to clinical work may not assist nursing students in integrating principles into complex ethical dilemmas. Self-identified culture, religion, and intrinsic religiosity related to ethics position; completing ethics courses and level of education, juniors compared with seniors, did not influence idealism. Faculty should consider integrating students’ culture, religious orientation, and ethics position into teaching ethics for all levels of nursing education.

Professional values and ethical ideology: Perceptions of nursing students

“…Unlike studies in other social and health science disciplines, 38 studies in nursing education seldom extend their classification of nursing students’ ethical ideology according to Forsyth’s 43 taxonomy. 52,61 In this current study, a classification of nursing students’ ethical ideologies is provided. Most students were classified as ‘situationists’ on a measure of ethical ideology and were more idealistic than relativistic.…”

“…Few studies have examined ethical ideologies among nursing students. A study by White et al 52 shows that ethical ideologies were associated with self-identified culture, religion and intrinsic religiosity. Smith 53 identified that nursing students at the beginning of their programme start out to be idealistic, but as they progress through their programme and become more disillusioned, cynical and preoccupied with getting through the work, arrived at the end with a loss of idealism, which has implication for caring in nursing.…”

Moral Resilience in Nursing Education: Exploring Undergraduate Nursing Students Perceptions of Resilience in Relation to Ethical Ideology

“…In nursing students, ethical ideology is associated with professional values (Arries, 2019) self-identified culture, and intrinsic religiosity (White et al, 2019). In their study, White et al (2019) found that students whose parents were not born in the United States scored higher on ethical idealism. Also, if English is not their primary language spoken at home, students scored higher on ethical idealism and relativism, suggesting a cultural link between ethical ideology, language, and birthplace.…”

Ethical challenges of obtaining informed consent from surgical patients

“…Moral performance and decision-making of the nurses can be affected by personal values, and economic, cultural, and environmental conditions. 2,27 For instance, the personal culture or even the organizational culture can hinder nurses from presenting the alternative treatment methods in the hospital. 1 Further attention should be paid to enhancing patients’ understanding regarding the authority to give informed consent for surgery, particularly in clinical settings, such as Iran, in which patients have diverse cultures and beliefs.…”