Abstract

LAGUNES-CORDOBA, Roberto  and  HERNANDEZ-MANZANARES, María Antonia. A Scale to Assess the Ethical Conduct of Nurses in Patient Care. Aquichan [online]. 2012, vol.12, n.3, pp.252-262. ISSN 1657-5997.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a scale to evaluate ethical conduct in nursing care, based on the three fundamental premises of Jean Watson's caring theory. The final version of the questionnaire consists of 13 Likert-type response categories that reflect the contents of the basic assumptions of that theory. The validity of the questionnaire was determined through factor analysis with principal component extraction and varimax rotation. The analysis suggested four factors that explain 64% of the variance. Three of the factors pertain to the basic premises of the theory, while the fourth is related to communication and empathy. Sampling adequacy for factor analysis was confirmed by means of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient (KMO = 0.848), Bartlett's test of sphericity (p <0.001) and calculation of the determinant of the correlation matrix (0.006). The internal consistency reliability of the overall scale is high (OC= 0.85). It was concluded the instrument is valid, reliable and represents a convenient way to assess the ethical behavior of nurses when providing care to hospitalized patients.

Keywords : Attention; care; ethics.

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