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Nursing Ethics
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Developing Ethical Competence in Health Care Organizations

Sofia Kälvemark Sporrong

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, sofia.kalvemark{at}pubcare.uu.se

Bengt Arnetz

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

Mats G. Hansson

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

Peter Westerholm

National Institute for Working Life, Stockholm, Sweden

Anna T. Höglund

Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Increased work complexity and financial strain in the health care sector have led to higher demands on staff to handle ethical issues. These demands can elicit stress reactions, that is, moral distress. One way to support professionals in handling ethical dilemmas is education and training in ethics. This article reports on a controlled prospective study evaluating a structured education and training program in ethics concerning its effects on moral distress. The results show that the participants were positive about the training program. Moral distress did not change significantly. This could be interpreted as competence development, with no effects on moral distress. Alternatively, the result could be attributed to shortcomings of the training program, or that it was too short, or it could be due to the evaluation instrument used. Organizational factors such as management involvement are also crucial. There is a need to design and evaluate ethics competence programs concerning their efficacy.

Key Words: clinical practice • ethics rounds • moral distress • pharmacy practice

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Nursing Ethics, Vol. 14, No. 6, 825-837 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0969733007082142
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