Relationship between nurses' self concept and ethical concept

Abstract

This descriptive study was designed to find out the relation between self concept and ethical concept of nurses. The data were collected from 224 staff nurses in a tertiary hospital located in Suwon city during February 24 to March 7, 2001. Self concept was measured with questionnaire developed by chung (1965) and ethical concept was measured with the questionnaire developed by the researcher. The 5 point Likert scale questionnaire had 95 items. The results were summarized as follows: 1) The mean score of self concept was 3.11. The ethical concept were measured in 4 areas and mean scores were : accountability, 3,93; collaboration, 3.70; caring, 3.63; an advocacy, 3.15. So accountability was the area with the highest score in ethical concept. 2) Nurses' self concept was significantly related to ethical concept (collaboration, r=.34, p<.001; advocacy, r=.32, p<.001; caring, r=.28, p<.001; and responsibility, r=.23, p<.001). 3) The self concept was significant in age(F=3.28, p=.000) and the ethical concept was significant in age(F=15.88, p=.000), education level(t=2.16, p=0.03), career(F=5.16, p=.001) In conclusion, there was a significant relationship between self concept and ethical concept of nurses. High score in accountability may be related to high level of legal responsibility of nurses. This finding suggests that it is the length of nursing career is significantly related to both self-concept and ethical concept. Thus, it is important to improve self concept in order to improve ethical concept of nurses from early the beginning of their career.