The influence of ethics education on awareness of nursing students with no clinical experience regarding the code of ethics: A case study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of ethics education on Korean nursing students’ awareness regarding the code of ethics. This study employed a one group pretest-posttest design. The participants were 48 sophomore nursing students with no clinical experience from a city in Korea. In this study, ethics education involved lectures related to “nursing ethics and professionalism”. Data were collected in September and December 2016. The collected data were analyzed using means, standard deviations, and paired t tests. The mean score on awareness regarding the code of ethics increased from 3.75 to 4.40 after the ethics education (t = 6.350, p < .001). Scores on the sub-domains of nurses and patients, obligations of nurses as experts, and nurses and cooperators also increased significantly (t = 6.224, t = 5.436, t = 4.969, respectively, all p < .001). In this study, ethics education was found to raise nursing students’ awareness regarding the code of ethics. Both awareness and practice of the code of ethics are crucial for adherence to the moral standards of professional behaviors required from medical professionals. Ethics education needs to be implemented, as it is indispensable for building a desirable ethical value system among future medical professionals and for enabling them to put ethical behaviors into practice by improving their moral judgment and sensitivity.