Examples Of Obstacles Facing Nurses In Applying Professional Ethics

Obstacles that face nurses in applying professional ethics

1- Managerial Barriers:

Managerial barriers were evolving around the issues including Labor shortage, long working hours, unsuitable working shift, lack of comers training courses and On-the-Job training courses about ethical issues and inefficiency of learned ethical educations during academic courses. Most nurses believed that one of the major and basic nursing problems is the lack of personnel and human labor: “how do you expect with the increasing number of clients and fixed number of nursing staff. These codes might be efficient in private hospitals but not here in public hospitals( Imanzadeh,2016).

Qamari Zare & Barmi, ,(2014) study which considered the lack of working labor as a major barrier of nursing ethical codes’ compliance. Another study revealed that the staff shortage and long working hours as two barriers despite the common perception, ethical behavior is a very professional matter among nurses, yet some issues might result a nurse would not meet the ethical requirements as she or he ought to. High working pressure and shortage of professional staff is naturally results in to lowering the quality of ethical code compliance ( Imanzadeh ,2016).

Health care institutions can overcome the shortage of personnel and
long working hours’ problem with precise and careful planning alongside the new managerial strategies such as staff need analysis and human resources’ planning. Unsuitable working shift is also another negatively effective factor among nurses. this effects nurse ethical decision making( Imanzadeh ,2016).

Lack of comers training courses and On-the-Job training courses about ethical issues is another managerial barrier to ethical codes compliance among nurses.
Hospital’s management should hold such courses for new comers and as in-the-job training courses with special privileges for nurses. Many nurses have just heard about these ethical codes and have no further knowledge. Deficiencies in curriculum, inadequate teaching methods and theoretical trainings are barriers to professional qualifications. Therefore, in addition to making the ethical concepts more practical, continues attention should be paid to professional ethics
training(Imanzadeh,2016).

2- Individual and Environmental Barriers:

Another identified main barrier was individual and environmental including biological problems, inaccessibility of the leading authorities when dealing with ethical dilemmas, lack of job satisfaction and multiple roles. Factors such as Insomnia, physical fatigue and mental fatigue can negatively affect ethical performance of nurses( Imanzadeh,2016).

Job satisfaction is also another influential factor moral decision making and ethical codes compliance .Nursing profession is not a flexible job and compare to other profession and its responsibilities does not a good income. All of these ethical codes and ethical behavior things are good for someone who really wants to stay in this job. Salemi .,(2000) has also indicated the role of job satisfaction in professional life and ethical priorities of nurses(salami ,2011). The results of Davis’ study have also emphasized the major influence of social, political, cultural, economic and impulsive factors on the lack of morality in health care field.