Evaluation of the relationship between compliance with professional ethics and job satisfaction among nurses

Background and Purpose: Professional ethics is one of the foremost components of every occupation. The ethical standards are essential to the improvement of quality of care. On the other hand, job satisfaction is a critical challenge for healthcare organizations. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between compliance with professional ethics and job satisfaction among nurses. Methods: This descriptive-correlational study was conducted on 142 nurses employed in the teaching hospitals of Sari, Iran. Participants were selected via stratified random sampling. Data collection tools were Cadozier's professional ethics questionnaire (2002), and Warr, Cook, and Wall's job satisfaction scale (1979). Data analysis was performed in SPSS V.14 using t-tests, Pearson’s correlationcoefficient, and one- way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results: In this study, the majority of the participants were female (90.1%), registered nurses (81.7%), and had bachelor’s degree (92.3%). Mean scores of compliance with professional ethics and job satisfaction were 62.01±6.92 and 47.86±9.94, respectively. No significant correlation was observed between compliance with the professional ethics and job satisfaction (P=0.113). Moreover, there was a significant association between the observance of professional ethics and work experience of the nurses (P=0.032). Accordingly, nurses with more than 10 years of work experience had greater compliance with professional ethics. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, compliance with professional ethics and job satisfaction are independent from each other. This may be due to the fact that in nursing professional ethics has a intrinsic and independent feature in compared to other parameters, such as payment equity, job bonus, and promotion, which could increase or reduce job satisfaction among these healthcare providers.