Nursing students’ perspectives on professional values in the universities of medical sciences in Iran

Abstract: To work through ethical dilemmas, nurses should have knowledge of and incorporate nursing professional values. In most cases values and ethics discussions were not formally a part of curriculums. Up to now, there has not been any study conducted on professional values in Iran. Therefore, purpose of the present study was to evaluate of the perception of Iranian nursing students about nurses’ professional values. This was a non-experimental descriptive research investigating the professional values of 439 B.Sc. nursing students in their last clinical courses. For data collection process, a two-part questionnaire was used, the first part of which included demographic variables and the second part involved the nursing professional values scale- revised developed by Weis and Schank, a 26-item Likert-scale format instrument, consisted of 5 dimensions (caring, activism, trust, professionalism and justice). The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 13). The mean scores of the NPVS-R factors on the five point Likert-type scales ranged from 3.26 to 3.76, with a total mean score of 3.57. The most important and least important factors identified by the participants were the trust and activism factors, respectively. Examination of the participants by sex, families’ economic situation and age revealed only significant differences in scores on the NPVS statements (p < 0.05). The mean scores range of factors is described in the NPVS-R as ‘important’ to ‘very important’. However, the least valued items were related to values that might require contribution outside of the work time or nonclinical tasks. To enhance the overall area of professional values of nursing, it is imperative to develop the planning and teaching methods according to the current conditions.