CONCEPTUALIZATION AND INSTRUMENTATION OF NURSES MORAL SENSITIVITY IN PSYCHIATRIC PRACTICE

The purpose of the study was to examine some interpersonal aspects of moral sensitivity in psychiatric nursing practice. A total of 79 regis tered nurses employed in community and hospital psychiatric settings i n Sweden participated in the study. The moral sensitivity test (MST), a 7-step Likert scale, was developed from the following conceptual cat egories: expressing benevolence, structuring moral meaning and modifyi ng autonomy, inductively derived in a previous grounded theory study. The results showed a positive correlation between items and total scor e indicating the relevance of the original categories. The findings of this study indicate that the MST test can be further developed psycho metrically as a measure for some variables that may account for moral decision-making in psychiatric practice.