Association between Nurses' Perception of the Ethical Climate Governing in Clinical Environment and Individual Characteristics in Teaching Hospitals of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences

Ethical climate is an important part of organizational culture which affects all aspects of individual characteristics and its improvement in health care centers causes better response of nurses to moral stress and ultimately promotes the quality of medical services. The aim of this study was to determine the nurses' perception of the ethical climate governing in clinical environment in the teaching hospitals of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences in 2018. This study was a descriptive-correlational study performed on 300 nurses by purposive sampling method. Two questionnaires used for data collection included demographic information and Olson ethical climate questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using linear regression and mean (SD) tests and by SPSS version 20. The results of the study showed that the overall score of moral climate in the participants was 3.79 ± 0.67. The highest and lowest ethical climate scores in this study were related to the dimension of nursing managers (3.86± 0.74) and physicians (3.58 ± 0.79), respectively. Also, a significant relationship was observed between variables such as years of experience and age with the dimensions of the ethical climate (p<0.05). According to the score of ethical climate obtained in this study, which is less than some studies conducted in this field in Iran. Considering the importance of the ethical climate and the consequences of defects in this issue, it is necessary for hospital managers to make appropriate plans to set up a favorable ethical climate on clinical environment in their most important priorities.