Evaluating the Level of Adherence to Ethical Principles When Changing Dressings by Nurses in Special, Surgical and Emergency Departments

Background & Goal: Dressing correctly is a nursing task that requires great skill and knowledge to avoid widespread complications such as infection and amputation or, in severe cases, even death. Compliance with ethical principles is considered essential in clinical care. The range of nursing ethics is the same as all the descriptions of nursing duties. Therefore, the above research was conducted with the aim of determining the level of compliance with ethical principles during dressing changes by nurses in special, surgical and emergency departments.materials and methods: In this descriptive study, ۱۵۰ nurses working in the surgical, special, and emergency departments of Shohada Ashayer - Khorramabad educational center were selected by census method in ۲۰۱۸. The data of this study was collected through a questionnaire, the first part of which included the demographic information of the nurses, and the second part of which included a checklist to assess the level of compliance with ethical principles during dressing changes by nurses. The results were analyzed using statistical software SPSS version ۲۲ and using chi-square, one-sample chi-square, non-parametric Mann-Whitney and non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis tests. To test the hypotheses, a significance level of ۰.۰۵ was considered.findings: The findings of the research showed that the average age of the nurses under the research was ۳۰.۴۲ ± ۵.۴۱ years, the average work experience was ۶.۵۲ ± ۴.۷۱ years, the average working hours per week was ۵۶.۰۳ ± ۱۰.۲۵ hours, the average work experience in Surgical departments aged ۵.۹۱ ± ۴.۲۹ years, also ۵۷.۷% of female nurses were single and ۶۵.۲% of male nurses were married. According to the obtained results, the performance of ۸۲% of nurses in observing ethical principles while changing the patient's dressing was good. According to the results of the one-sample chi-square test, the frequency of nurses with poor and average performance was lower than expected and the frequency of nurses with good performance was higher than expected. Also, the performance of nurses in ICU ۱ and ICU ۴ was better than other departments. The results obtained from the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test to compare the performance of nurses based on their gender showed that there was no significant difference between the performance of male and female nurses at the five percent error level (p>۰.۰۵).Discussion and conclusion: Since one of the most important tasks of nurses, as the ma