Effects of an ethical empowerment program on critical care nurses' ethical decision-making

Nurses require empowerment if they are to make ethical decisions. Ethical empowerment has always been one of the main concerns in nurse training programs.

The present study was conducted to determine the effect of an ethical empowerment program on critical care nurses' ethical decision-making.

This is a clinical trial study with two groups and pre and post design.

In this study, 60 nurses working in Intensive Care Unit were selected through random sampling and then divided into a control and an experimental group after filling out the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire. Both groups completed the questionnaire again immediately and 2 months after the ethical empowerment workshop had been held for the experimental group. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS-16 using descriptive and inferential statistics.

The goals of the study were explained to the participants and then a written informed consent was received from them.

The results showed no significant differences between the two groups in terms of their ethical sensitivity scores at the beginning of the study; however, immediately and 2 months after the intervention, the mean score increased significantly in the experimental group. Moreover, the scores obtained 2 months after the workshop increased compared to the pre-intervention scores but showed a drop compared to the scores reported immediately after the workshop.

The ethical empowerment program, given to the critical care nurses in this study, improved their ethical sensitivity in making decisions significantly over time. Despite the extensive methods, available for teaching nursing ethics, the ethical empowerment program, adopted in this study, had long-lasting effects in terms of ameliorating the process of ethical decision-making in clinical situations.

The ethical empowerment of nurses requires the adoption and application of proper methods and patterns of complying with nursing ethics.