Aim: We aim to explore the status of nurses' ethical behaviours in clinical practice and what contributes to nurses' unethical behaviours.
Background: Nurses' ethical behaviours strongly impact the nurse-patient relationship and the quality of nursing services. Therefore, we must understand the status of clinical nurses' ethical behaviours and the causes of nurses' unethical behaviours.
Methods: Focus group and in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with 21 head nurses and nine nurses, respectively. The data were analysed by content analysis.
Results: The analysis revealed seven themes: lack of awareness of the protection of patients' privacy; violation of patients' autonomy; improper communication; failure to protect the patient's best interests; lack of moral emotion; lack of psychological care for special patients; and causes of unethical behaviour.
Conclusions: The present situation of ethical nursing behaviour is not optimistic, and there are still many unethical nursing behaviours in clinical work. There are many reasons for unethical behaviours. Efforts should be made related to nurses, patients, workload, the ethical climate and rules and regulations to improve the situation.
Implications for nursing management: Nursing managers can improve ethical behaviour by strengthening nurses' ethics studies, enhancing nurses' professional identity and social status, optimizing the allocation of nursing human resources, creating a good ethical climate and improving relevant rules and regulations.
Keywords: ethics; moral; nurses; qualitative research.
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