The relationship between nurses' moral competency and missed nursing care: a descriptive-correlational study

When any aspect of patient care is overlooked or delayed, it is known as Missed Nursing Care (MNC), leading to adverse events such as medication errors, infections, increased mortality rates, and poor prognosis. Moral competence is crucial for clinical nurses as it guarantees high-quality patient care in nursing practice. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the correlation between moral competencies and MNC among nurses.

This study was conducted with a descriptive-correlational design. The participants in the study were nurses who were currently enrolled at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. In order to recruit nurses for the study, a convenience sampling method was implemented. The study tools were completed by a total of two hundred nurses. Research tools included a demographic questionnaire, the Moral Competence of Clinical Nurses Questionnaire, and the Kalisch and Williams Missed Nursing Care (MISSCARE) survey.

This study was approved by the Medical Ethics and Law Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

The mean scores of moral competencies and MNC were 151.83 ± 12.60 and 42.71 ± 9.38, respectively. In other words, descriptive statistics showed that the moral competence score was more than 75%, and the MNC score was less than 50%. Also, there was a significant negative correlation between the total scores of moral competencies and MNC (r = -0.38, p < 0.001), indicating that more moral competence was correlated with lower levels of MNC.

The study revealed a negative correlation between nurses' moral competence and MNC, suggesting that enhancing moral competence could reduce MNC. To reduce MNC occurrences, hospitals, and organizations should prioritize moral competency, according to our research.