Bioethics education and the development of nursing students' moral competence

The nurse accompanies individuals throughout their lives and, when in the hospital environment, provides care to those who face illness or injury. Nurses witness numerous situations involving ethical dilemmas that require a prompt and effective response based on ethical and moral principles.

This study aimed to determine whether bioethics education in nursing influences the level of moral competence and opinion of nursing students about three ethical dilemmas.

A longitudinal study was conducted through the application of the MCTxt (Moral Competence Test extended) questionnaire, composed of three ethical dilemmas (worker, doctor and judge), on two separate occasions (before and after students completed the Bioethics and Nursing Ethics curricular unit, which covered a total of 32 h).

122 s-year students from a Portuguese nursing school.

Nursing students showed a moral competence stagnation (1.2-point difference between the two assessments), although this did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.268). Regarding performance for each of the dilemmas, students showed an increase in performance for the worker's and judge's dilemmas and a sharp decrease in performance for the doctor's dilemma.

The support of students by morally competent teachers and monitors, the development of methods that provide the development of critical judgement and decision-making ability, and the increase of hours for the Bioethics course unit seem crucial factors to develop nursing students' moral competence.