موانع حساسیت اخلاقی از دیدگاه پرستاران بیمارستان‌های آموزشی شهر سبزوار

Due to the development of societies and nursing sciences, complexity of the ethical situations that nurses encounter is increasing. Moral sensitivity is the first component of ethical behavior, but most of the nurses encounter many barriers in acquiring it. This study was an attempt to determine barriers to ethical sensitivity in nurses’ viewpoints in educational hospitals of Sabzevar in 2012.This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a random sample of nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences, Iran (n = 125). Data were gathered through a questionnaire developed by the researchers containing 30 items in four categories of ethical sensitivity barriers including “managerial”, “environmental”, ”patient related” and “nurse related”. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire were assessed = α) 0.85), and data were analyzed by SPSS version 16.The most important barriers were “insufficient number of staff” (83.2%) in the management area, “inappropriate and intensive working shifts” (78.4%) in the nurse related category, “lack of awareness of nurses’ duties among patients” (84.8%), in the patient related category and “overcrowded wards” (76.8%) in the environmental area. The results of this study emphasize the importance of moral sensitivity barriers in all four areas of management barriers, environmental barriers, and barriers to nurses and patients, and could be of special interest to managers and health planners.