Introduction:

Professional ethics commits nurses to doing their professional activities in the right way. Complying with professional ethics has been known as an inherent part of nursing. The present study aims to evaluate nurses' compliance with professional ethics.

Materials and Methods:

This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted on 270 nurses working at the university hospitals of Peimanieh and Ostad Mottahari, Jahrom, Iran, in 2013. Sampling was based on the census method. The data gathering tool consisted of a valid, reliable (r=0.95) questionnaire including two sections of demographic information and 38 items in 7 domains related to professional ethics with a 5-point Likert scale. Data analysis was performed by descriptive and analytic statistics via SPSS v. 16.

Results:

The mean of the participants' total professional ethics score was found to be 4.08±0.08 out of 5, which was desirable. There was no significant correlation between any of the nurses' demographic characteristics and compliance with nursing professional ethics (p>0.05).      

Conclusion:

It is suggested that the nurses' satisfactory compliance with professional ethics be preserved and improved through the establishment of active educational classes by ethics committees.