THE EFFECT OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS EDUCATION THROUGH CASE-BASED METHOD ON MORAL SENSITIVITY IN NURSING STUDENTS: A CLINICAL TRIAL STUDY

Nursing students whose future nurses, are the largest provider of health services
and will have a critical role in health care. Therefore, with regard to the profession's importance and
social status, Nurses, along with clinical competencies, should have ethical competencies to provide
appropriate and professional care. Therefore the present study was conducted to determine the effect of
teaching professional ethics through case-based method on moral sensitivity of nursing students at
Urmia nursing and midwifery faculty in 2016.
Materials & Methods: In this clinical trial study, 73 nursing students who had not passed the ethic
course were recruited to the study through the census method. Using a table of random numbers,
participants were randomly assigned to a 37‑person CBL group and a 36‑person lecture group. Using
the Lutzen moral sensitivity questionnaire a pre-test was performed of both groups before the
intervention. Ethics education was done in both groups for two months and a half. Educational contents
were the same in both groups and the only difference was the type of educational method. One month
after the intervention, the moral sensitivity questionnaire was completed again by the two groups. Data
were analyzed by SPSS 16 (v. 16.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) statistical software, independent ttest, paired t-test and Chi-square test.
Results: No statistically significant difference was found between the intervention and the control
groups regarding the pretest mean score of moral sensitivity (p = 0.22), But after the intervention, the
mean score of moral sensitivity in the case-based group were significantly increased compared to the
lecture group (p = 0.04).
Conclusions: A case-based approach to ethics education is more effective than the routine method in
promoting nursing students’ moral sensitivity and promoting moral sensitivity is a major contributor to
providing better nursing care. It is, therefore, recommended that this method be used while imparting
professional ethics education