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Analysis of self-evaluated ethical competence of midwifery students at a selected nursing college in the Free State

Curationis

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Analysis of self-evaluated ethical competence of midwifery students at a selected nursing college in the Free State
 
Creator Mpeli, Moliehi R.
 
Subject — Self-evaluation; ethical competence; moral dimensions; Principlism and code of ethics
Description Background: It is imperative to know whether the students who have undergone a specific training perceive themselves as confident and competent in handling ethical dilemmas, in the face of contemporary ethical challenges. Such evaluation is significant especially for nursing and midwifery students who have undergone training that stipulates adherence to a code of ethics and professional norms. At present, such knowledge is limited, and this has an impact for ethics education.Objectives: The article aims to describe the self-evaluated ethical competence of midwifery students and to contrast the findings to the content of the ethics instruction received. Based on outcomes, the article aims to convey the claim to nursing institutions that current strategies that rely on teaching nursing ethics without appraising the context of a situation are ineffective in fostering ethical competence amongst students.Method: This study made use of a set of self-reflection reports in which the midwifery nursing students narrated their experiences in handling ethical issues.Results: Analysis of the self-reflective reports revealed that one of the three dimensions of ethical competence was limited. There was evidence of moral perception, moral action and substandard moral reasoning. The principles that were mostly referred to within the narratives were autonomy and beneficence.Conclusion: The findings support the argument that teaching principlism and enforcing a code of ethics without contextualising it coerces the student to conform without questioning their beliefs. Thus, ethical competence amongst the midwifery students may be described in terms of compliance to principles with limited reflection on the situation as a whole.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2018-08-29
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/curationis.v41i1.1925
 
Source Curationis; Vol 41, No 1 (2018); 9 pages 2223-6279 0379-8577
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1925/2324 https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1925/2323 https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1925/2325 https://curationis.org.za/index.php/curationis/article/view/1925/2314
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Moliehi R. Mpeli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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