Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Nursology, cilt.26, sa.4, ss.231-237, 2023 (ESCI, Scopus, TRDizin)
Objective: This research was conducted to determine the ethical attitudes of nurses working in pediatric clinics and the factors affecting these attitudes. Methods: This research is a cross-sectional descriptive study. The study included 230 pediatric nurses who are members of the Association of Pediatric Nurses and work in private and public institutions throughout Turkey. The data were collected using the “The Introductory Features Form”, “Form for Determining the Need for Knowledge/Application on the Concept of Ethics and Adopted Ethical Principles”and the “Ethical Attitude Scale in Nursing Care.” For statistical analyses, Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Mann–Whitney U, and Kruskal–Wallis tests have been used. Results: About 57.8% of the nurses participating in the study were between the ages of 20 and 30 (57.8%), 51.7% were married, and 55.7% were undergraduate graduates. About 85.7% of them received training on ethics. A total of 85.2% of the respondents mentioned that they faced ethical issues while working with pediatric patients, while 81.1% indicated the presence of ethical problems between nurses and patient relatives. The mean score of the ethical attitude scale in nursing care of the pediatric nurses participating in the study was 158.19 ± 12.62. A statistically significant difference was found between the participants’ professional working years and working time in the unit they worked in and the average score they got from the scale (P <.05). No significant difference was found between age, marital status, educational status, unit of work, receiving ethics education, encountering ethical problems, and scale total scores. Conclusion: In this study, it was determined that nurses have a positive ethical attitude in nursing care. The years of experience and the duration of working in the unit were found to influence the ethical attitudes of nurses, while the unit, age, and receiving ethical education were not found to be effective. Nurses were observed to frequently encounter ethical problems when working with pediatric patients and expressed a need for consultation on ethical matters.