Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Nurses are confronted with numerous situations calling for moral decision-making in their workplace every day. Nursing students should therefore attain a satisfactory level of moral development during their university years. The present study was conducted to determine nursing students’ level of moral development, as there seems to be a shortage of similar studies throughout the country. This descriptive, correlational research was performed in 2010 study samples were 115 junior and senior students of the Department of Nursing and Midwifery of Tabriz University of Medical University who were selected by census. These students’ level of moral development was evaluated through the Nursing Dilemma Test (NDT), which has been created based on Kohlberg’s theory of ethical development. NDT assesses nurses’ moral development in three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional, and evaluates their observance of clinical considerations at the same time. A number of the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics were also collected through a questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using SPSS statistical software, and descriptive and inferential statistics. According to the findings of this study, 13 students (11.3%) were in the pre-conventional, 33 (28.7%) in the conventional, and 55 (47.8%) in the post-conventional level, and 14 (12.1%) took clinical considerations into account more than others. There seemed to be no meaningful statistical relationship between the students’ moral development and their age (P = 0.49), sex (P = 0.21), marital status (P = 0.79), place of education (P = 0.32), and year of education (P = 0.92). These results showed that although approximately half of the students under study were in the post-conventional level, which is an acceptable level of moral development, a great percentage were still in the lower levels. This means that those in administrative positions in nursing departments need to pay more attention to the moral education of nursing students.

Keywords: moral development, moral reasoning, Kohlberg’s theory of ethical development, nursing students

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