Ethical and Social Values of the Senior Class Nursing Students

Abstract

Introduction: Schools contribute to the development of moral values and professional ethics by helping students achieve cognitive and emotional goals with methods that are not included in the school curriculum. Aim: The aim of the study was to determine the ethical and social values of the senior class of nursing undergraduate students and to demonstrate the association between them. Method: This study was carried out on the 4th year undergraduate students in the Department of Nursing of the university’s Faculty of Health Sciences in Düzce in Turkey. In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 160 nursing undergraduate students were selected as the sample. Data were collected between October and December 2017 using a socio-demographic characteristics form as well as a “Predisposition to Ethical Values Scale” and a “Multidimensional Social Values Scale”. Results: The total score average of the nursing studentsʼ ethical values and the multidimensional social values was 68.56 ± 9.75 and 163.46 ± 15.97, respectively. There was a moderate positive statistical significant relationship between predisposition to ethical values and multidimensional social values (p < 0.01, r: 0.502). Conclusion: The total scores and the subscale mean scores of the nursing students for the scales of “predisposition to ethical values” and “multidimensional social values” were found to be high. There was a moderate positive association between predisposition to ethical values and multidimensional social values. These results show that social and ethical values play an important role in the professional decision-making and behaviour of nursing students.