Academic ethical awareness among undergraduate nursing students.

Background: Academic ethical awareness is an important aspect especially for nursing students who will provide ethical nursing care to patients in future or try to tread the path of learning toward professional acknowledgement in nursing scholarship.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore academic ethical awareness and its related characteristics among undergraduate nursing students.

Methods: This study commenced the survey with cross-sectional, descriptive questions and enrolled convenient samples of 581 undergraduate nursing students from three universities in South Korea. It was investigated with structured questionnaires including general characteristics and academic ethical awareness related.

Ethical Considerations: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at National University.

Findings: Academic ethical awareness was the highest regarding behaviors violating the respect or confidentiality of patients and cheating on exams, while it was the lowest for inappropriate behaviors in class. From the result of general characteristics difference, male students showed higher score than female students in relative; first-year students showed higher score than other year students; the higher score was rated from students who were highly satisfied with their major than the other not satisfied with their major; and students with low academic stress showed higher ethical awareness score than persons with higher stress.

Conclusion: Personal behaviors were rated with low ethical awareness in relative, but items related to public rules and actual effects on patients or others were rated with higher score. Nursing satisfaction and academic stress are main factors on ethical awareness. To improve overall ethical awareness level of nursing students, it is required to provide more education about the importance of personal behaviors in class and need to improve the understanding of how it will be connected with future situation and effect.