Moral Courage of Nurses and its Affecting Factors: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: Moral courage is one of the core values in the nursing profession and is defined as standing up for what is right. Considering the importance of the issue of moral courage in nurses and its effects on the quality of nursing care, this review study was conducted to investigate the moral courage of nurses and related factors.  Material and Methods: A narrative review study was conducted in 2021. English and Persian databases (PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Iran Medex, SID, Magiran) were searched with the keywords such as Moral courage OR Moral OR Courage AND Nurses OR Nurse moral courage. Inclusion criteria allowed for cross-sectional studies conducted from 2000 to 2021 (published in English or Persian language journals), studies that had key words in their keywords or their titles and standard instruments for measuring Moral courage in nurses.    Results: Of the 175 publications found, 16 were selected after reviewing the title, abstract and full article. Findings of the study showed that the moral courage of nurses was moderate. Four factors related to moral courage include factors related to the individual, factors related to ethics, factors related to the negligence of medical staff, factors related to the organization. Conclusion: Considering that the moral courage of nurses has been at a moderate level, so it is suggested that managers in medical centers be diligent in ways to increase the moral courage of nurses. Also, retraining courses should be provided to increase the moral courage of nurses.