Doctoral dissertation (article) (G5)

Support for nurses’ ethical competence − organizational and individual support by nurse leaders




List of AuthorsPoikkeus Tarja

PublisherUniversity of Turku

PlaceTurku

Publication year2019

ISBN978-951-29-7528-0

eISBN978-951-29-7529-7

URLhttp://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-7529-7

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttp://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-7529-7


Abstract

Nurse leaders play a vital role in supporting nurses’ ethical competence. The first aim of the research underlying this thesis was to analyze of support for nurses’ ethical competence from the perspective of both nurses and nurse leaders based on earlier theoretical literature and empirical data. Secondly, the aim was to analyze the relationships between organizational and individual support, and nurses’ ethical competence. Furthermore, the relationships between ethical competence, ethical safety and work satisfaction were covered. The ultimate goal was to produce, in the field of professional nursing ethics, knowledge regarding nurse leaders support for nurses’ ethical competence, to improve nurses’ ethical safety and enhance their work satisfaction. 

This research was carried out in two phases. During phase I, four literature reviews in MEDLINE, Ovid Nursing and British Nursing Index databases were conducted to explore knowledge on organizational and individual support for nurses’ ethical competence, ethical safety and work satisfaction. Moreover, a cross-sectional survey in two university hospitals in Finland was employed to analyze nurse leaders (N=539, n=198, response rate 37 %) support for nurses’ ethical competence during recruitment and performance reviews. Phase II was characterized by the development and testing of the Ethical Competence Support instrument (EthiCS). To analyze the relationships between main concepts, descriptive and cross-sectional correlational survey design was used. Empirical data were retrieved from both nurses (N=1100, n=298, response rate= 26%) and their nurse leaders (N=1100, n=193, response rate= 16%). The data analysis methods used in this study were descriptive and inferential statistics including regression analysis and path analysis and content analysis for open-ended questions. 

The results showed that perceptions of organizational support were low among nurses and average among nurse leaders. Nurses reported moderate levels of individual support and nurse leaders at average level. Organizational and individual support was found to directly and positively correlate with nurses’ ethical competence. Furthermore, ethical competence was positively correlated with nurses’ ethical safety and work satisfaction. Finally, the results showed that nurse leaders can leverage both organizational and individual support to improve nurses’ ethical competence, which, in turn, contributes to ethical safety and work satisfaction. 

Nurse leaders need to adopt a variety of activities to support nurses’ ethical competence, like creation of ethics policy statements, support for multidisciplinary discussion of ethical issues, ethics education, empowering nurses to handle and solve ethical problems and providing feedback on nurses’ ethical actions. Future research should employ interventional studies that aim to identify the ways in which nurse leaders leverage organizational and individual measures to support nurses’ ethical competence.


Last updated on 2021-24-06 at 09:29