Ethical Activity Profile of Nurse Managers -Testing Ethics Quarter as an Intervention

December 14, 2020 updated by: Laura Laukkanen, Turku University Hospital

The aim of this study is:

  1. to test a new ethics educational intervention for nurse mangers, Ethics Quarter (EQ) and
  2. to measure the feasibility and the usability of the EQ

The detailed research questions and hypothesis of this study are as follows:

  1. Is EQ effective in increasing NMs' ethics knowledge?
  2. Is EQ effective in increasing NMs' influencing ethics issues?
  3. Is EQ effective in increasing NMs' ethics research implementing?
  4. Is EQ effective in increasing NMs' ethics problem identifying?

  5. Is EQ effective in increasing NMs' ethics problem solving?

    H 1-5: It is hypothesized that participating into EQ promotes NM's ethics knowledge, influencing ethics issues, ethics research implementing, ethics problem identifying and ethics problem solving compared to comparisons.

  6. What are NM's perceptions of feasibility and usability of the EQ?

The ultimate goal is to strengthen nurse managers' ethical activity profile and create a new, modern way to promote ethical management of nursing.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

A new educational intervention, EQ, for nurse managers has developed. Intervention development has evaluated by using criteria for complex interventions in health care (CReDECI)- guideline (Möhler et al. 2012). EQ intervention is based on distance learning method and it consists of 12 educational packages included in the virtual learning environment www.etiikanvartti.fi.

Effectiveness of EQ intervention will be tested by using an individually randomized controlled trial with baseline-, post- and follow-up-measurements.The intervention group will participate in the educational EQ intervention and the control group will not participate.

Data will be collected via the membership register of the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals in Finland (Tehy) trade union. This union is a national interest group for nurses, nurse managers and advanced consultants/specialists in the social and health-care sector having a Master's degree (nursing science or related) or registered nurses degree.

Based on statistical power analysis, the required sample size for the study will be 87 NMs at both groups, at 80%, 0.05 significance level.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

341

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Working as a nurse manager
  • Finnish-speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unwilling to provide consent

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Ethics Quarter
Nurse managers perform 12 educational packages in web-page www.etiikanvartti.fi.
Behavioral: Ethics Quarter

In the intervention, nurse managers have two educational packages per week, one taking 15 minutes (one quarter).The structure of the whole intervention is made according to the dimensions of ethical activity profile of nurse managers (Laukkanen et al. a2016; Laukkanen et al b2016) consisting of managers:

  1. Developing of own ethics knowledge,
  2. Influencing ethical issues,
  3. Conducting/implementing ethics research,
  4. Identifying and
  5. Solving ethical problems.

Intervention includes also orientation and summary, in total 12 educational packages.

After every dimension, NMs have to make self-reflection and development plans, in total five times. This provides them the opportunity to link their everyday experience with ethical theory.
No Intervention: Standard organisational ethics structures
Nurse managers continue in their standard organisational ethics structures

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Changes in nurse managers' ethical activity profile level.
Time Frame: Baseline, week 6 and week 10

Ethical activity profile consists of five dimensions: 1) Developing of own ethics knowledge, 2) Influencing ethical issues, 3) Conducting/implementing ethics research, 4) Identifying and 5) Solving ethical problems.

Dimensions 1-3 will be measured with Developing, Influencing and implementing ethics -instrument (DIIEI), Dimension 4 will be measured with Ethical Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire (ESSQ) and Dimension 5 will be measured with Nurses' Moral Courage Scale (NMCS) at baseline (before the intervention), week 6 (after the intervention) and week 10.

Results of the all three instruments create one primary outcome measure, ethical activity profile level. All the instruments are 5-point Likert-scales (1=totally disagree; 5=totally agree/1= Does not describe me at all; 5= Describes me very well) and the higher scores indicate higher self-assessed ethical activity profile level.
Baseline, week 6 and week 10
Changes in nurse managers' ethical activity profile level.
Time Frame: Baseline, week 6 and week 10
Changes in nurse managers' self-assessed level of the ethical activity profile measured with the Ethical activity-instrument (EAI) at baseline (before the intervention), week 6 (after the intervention) and week 10. The higher scores indicate higher self-assessed ethical activity profile level.
Baseline, week 6 and week 10

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Changes in nurse managers' knowledge level.
Time Frame: Baseline, week 6 and week 10
Changes in knowledge level is measured with the Nursing Management Ethics Knowledge-test (NMEKT) at baseline (before the intervention), week 6 (after the intervention) and week 10. The higher scores indicate higher level of knowledge.
Baseline, week 6 and week 10
Nurse managers' perceptions of the feasibility and usability of EthicsQuarter.
Time Frame: Week 6
Perceptions of the feasibility is measured with open questions and the usability of the web site is measured with the System Usability Scale (SUS) at week 6. The higher scores indicate higher usability.
Week 6

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Turku University Hospital

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

March 2, 2020

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 7, 2020

Study Completion (Actual)

December 7, 2020

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 13, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 17, 2020

First Posted (Actual)

January 21, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 16, 2020

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 14, 2020

Last Verified

December 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • EQ-i

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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