Background and Objectives: Caring is the core of the nursing profession, and in order to deal with ethical problems in caring for patients, nurses need to enjoy a high level of moral reasoning. Moral reasoning is the ability of the person to judge correctly in the face of ethical issues. This study aimed to determine the relationship between ethical reasoning and care behaviors of nurses in the emergency department due to the necessity of using ethical reasoning for ethical-based care.
Materials and Methods: Through descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study 272 nurses participated in the study using the convenience method. Data were gathered using demographic information questionnaire, standard care behavior questionnaire, and Crisham’s nursing dilemma test. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression using SPSS software ver. 22.
Results: The mean scores of nurses’ ethical thinking, clinical considerations and nurses’ caring behavior were 45.10±7.22, 21.67±3.72 and 4.65±0.42, respectively. In multivariate analysis, a positive and significant relationship was found between moral reasoning and care behavior (β=0.019, p<0.001).
Conclusion: Due to the direct relationship between ethical reasoning and care behavior, it seems that promoting ethical reasoning of nurses can be effective in promoting their better performance and increasing the quality of care.