Moral Development in Nursing Students of Hamedan University of Medical Sciences

Introduction Over the years of education, nursing students are expected to achieve moral development to cope with ethical dilemmas in clinical environment. Considering the importance of this issue, this study was conducted to determine the moral development of nursing students of Hamedan University of medical science.

Methods In this descriptive-correlative study 66 senior students of baccalaureate nursing program were evaluated using enumeration sampling method. The data was collected using a bipartite questionnaire including demographic questions and Kohlberg’s nursing dilemma test. Moral development level of the students was determined in three stages of pre-conventional morality, conventional morality, and post-conventional morality. Moral thinking and clinical considerations scores, also were evaluated. The data was analyzed by IBM SPSS 16 using independent T-test and Pearson's correlation.

Results: 19% of students were in pre-conventional, 36% in conventional and 45% in post-conventional level of moral development. Moral thinking mean score was 47.52 8.13 that was in medium level and clinical considerations mean score was 20.32 4.205. There were no significant correlation between students’ moral development and their age (), gender (P=0.499), GPA (P=0.64), marital status (P=0.103), inhabitance (P=0.804) and student work experience(P=0.724).

Conclusion: : half of students had needed moral development scores and in order to improve moral decision making this issue must be included in nursing curricula and apprenticeship