The survey of the relationship between ethical climate and ethical behavior in nurses

Nursing is an occupation which is always faced with common ethical problems and paying attention to ethical behavior can exert a considerable effect on the organizational activities and results. Ethicalclimate is also considered among the factors influencing the staff ethical behavior and decision making. The present study was conducted aiming at the relationship between ethicalclimate and nurses’ ethical behavior. The present study is of the descriptive-analytical type. The study sample includes 251 nurses working in Ali Ibn Abitaleb and Khatam Al- Anbia hospital in Zahedan in 2014 and for collecting the information a three-part questionnaire was applied the first part of which pertained to demographic characteristics, the second part included Olson ethicalclimate questionnaire and the third part was related to the Luis ethical behavior questionnaire. Data was analyzed by making use of SPSS 19 and descriptive statistical methods, independent sample t-test and variance analysis. The results obtained in the present study indicated that the ethicalclimate governing hospitals is deemed as optimum from the nurses’ perspective (the average score= 94.78). There was not observed a significant difference between the ethicalclimate mean scores and ethical behavior (P>0.05). Nurses’ demographic characteristics were not in a significant relationship with ethicalclimate (P>0.05). The results obtained in the present study indicated that there is no significant relationship between ethicalclimate and ethical behavior.