ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
Nursing ethics is an essential part of nursing education, and ethical decision-making is a critical competency that nursing students must possess. This study aimed to investigate the ethical decision-making ability of nursing students in China and to identify the factors that affect this ability. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 500 nursing students from four universities in China. The Ethical Decision-Making Ability Questionnaire (EDMAQ) was used to assess the ethical decision-making ability of the participants, and a demographic questionnaire was used to collect information about their age, gender, education level, and clinical experience. The results showed that the mean score of the participants on the EDMAQ was 79.62 (SD = 10.72), indicating a moderate level of ethical decision-making ability. Female students scored significantly higher than male students, and students with more clinical experience scored higher than those with less experience. The findings of this study suggest that nursing education in China needs to focus more on developing nursing students' ethical decision-making abilities, particularly for male students and those with limited clinical experience.
Lachman, V. D. (2016). Applying the ethics of care to your nursing practice. Medsurg Nursing, 25(6), 402-405.
Hoskins, K., Grady, C., & Ulrich, C. M. (2018). Ethics education in nursing: Instruction for future generations of nurses. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1).
Choi, Y. J., Park, M., Jeong, S., Lee, N., Yoo, Y., Lim, Y., & Yoo, J. (2019). Nurses' ethical conflicts in end-of-life care in South Korea. Nursing Ethics, 26(6), 1706–1717.
Burkhart, L., & Nathaniel, A. (2019). Ethical reasoning: A key capability for advanced practice registered nurses. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 31(1), 45–51.
Alzayyat, A., & Al-Gamal, E. (2014). A review of the literature regarding ethical leadership in nursing. Nursing Ethics, 21(4), 509–520.
De Gagne, J. C., Kim, S. S., Kim, E. J., & Lee, W. H. (2018). Reflective writing and its impact on empathy in medical education: Systematic review. Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions, 15, 20.
Esmaeilpour, M., & Saki-Malehi, A. (2021). The impact of nursing education on the ethical decision-making competency of Iranian nursing students. Nursing Ethics, 28(1), 125–136.
Hong, Y. A., Kim, S., Kim, S., Kim, M. J., & Park, M. (2018). Ethical decision-making among senior nursing students in South Korea. Nursing Ethics, 25(5), 565–576.
Kim, M. J., & Park, M. (2019). Impact of ethical sensitivity on ethical decision-making among Korean nursing students: A national survey. Nursing Ethics, 26(1), 95–107.
Valizadeh, L., Zamanzadeh, V., Akbarbegloo, M., Sayadi, L., & Dehghan-Nayeri, N. (2016). Moral distress among Iranian nurses. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 21(1), 7–12.
Xiao, L. D., Wang, L., He, G. P., & De Bellis, A. (2020). Modernisation of nursing education in China: A systematic review of the past 40 years. Nurse Education Today, 85, 104271.
Park, M., & Lee, H. (2019). Development and psychometric evaluation of the Ethical Decision-Making Ability Questionnaire (EDMAQ) for nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 82, 62-67.
Valizadeh, L., Zamanzadeh, V., Akbarbegloo, M., Sayadi, L., & Dehghan-Nayeri, N. (2016). Moral distress among Iranian nurses. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 21(1), 7-12.
Abdel-Razig, S., Ibrahim, A. E., Almogrebi, A. S., & Alshahrani, K. A. (2017). Ethical decision-making among Saudi nursing students. Nursing Ethics, 24(7), 858–868.
AlMahmoud, S., AlGhabeesh, S., & Zyoud, S. H. (2019). Ethical decision-making among Palestinian nursing students: A cross-sectional study. Nurse Education Today, 75, 9–15.
Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2019). Principles of biomedical ethics (8th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Gao, X., Zhang, Y., Xia, W., Sun, Q., & Shao, H. (2021). A survey on the ethical decision-making of nursing students in China: A pilot study. BMC Medical Education, 21(1), 178.
Gholami, F., Manoochehri, H., & Tirgari, B. (2019). Ethical decision-making among Iranian male and female nursing students. BMC Medical Ethics, 20(1), 84.
Jamshidifar, Z., Malekzadeh, J., Nikbakht Nasrabadi, A., & Abbasi, M. (2020). Ethical decision-making in Iranian nurses: A gender-based study. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 208–221.
Jormsri, P., Kunaviktikul, W., & Ketefian, S. (2020). Ethical decision-making among Thai nursing students: A descriptive study. Nursing Ethics, 27(6), 1565–1577.
Kim, H. J., Kim, Y., & Ahn, Y. H. (2019). Clinical nurses' ethical decision-making: A qualitative study. Nursing Ethics, 26(4), 995–1009.
Kjelsvik, M., & Bjorkly, S. (2021). Ethical decision-making among mental health care professionals: A systematic review of the literature. Nursing Ethics, 28(2), 139–155.
Park, S. J., & Lee, S. H. (2019). Factors influencing ethical decision-making abilities among Korean nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 73, 61–66.
Siti, N. M., Syah, N. A., & Sumarni, S. (2020). Nursing students' ethical decision-making in Malaysia. Nurse Education Today, 86, 104348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2019.104348
Svavarsdottir, E. K., Sigurdardottir, A. K., & Konradsdottir, E. (2017). Ethical dilemmas and cultural competence in psychiatric nursing. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 24(5), 315–322.
Yang, Y., Wang, A., Wang, Q., & Yang, Y. (2021). Ethical decision-making among Chinese nursing students: A descriptive study. BMC Medical Ethics, 22(1), 74.
In-Text Citation: (Jieting & Baki, 2023)
To Cite this Article: Jieting, Y., & Baki, R. (2023). The Ethical Decision-Making Ability of Nursing Students in China’s Universities. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 12(2), 2083–2090.
Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode