Introduction: The cornerstone of all nursing care is professional ethics. Nursing ethics is the essence of nursing
professionalism and its observance is the same as the expectations of the patients. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the barriers to professional ethics in nursing practice from the perspective of nurses at Imam Khomeini Hospital in Sarab (2018).
Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 108 clinical nurses in Sarab city hospital in 2018 who were selected by simple random sampling. The data collection tools of the two questionnaires, which included demographic characteristics and a standard research questionnaire of the Barriers to observe standards of professional ethics from the perspective of nursing staff that had three areas: Management, environment, and personal care. SPSS software version 24 was used to analyze the data and in this regard, descriptive statistics (including: frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) were used.
Results: From the nurses' point of view, the most important obstacles in the managerial dimension are the shortage of staff with an average (4.1±35.05) and insufficient moral and legal support of senior managers of nursing staff with an average (4.1±25.02), in the environmental dimension. Abnormal expectations of patients and their companions from nursing staff with a mean (4.1±10.15) and crowded wards with an average (3.1±87.22), also in the individual-care dimension, there was insufficient income or insufficient rest in the nursing staff with an average (3.1±87.24).
Conclusion: Lack of staff, insufficient income or insufficient rest, and unreasonable expectations of patients and companions were identified as influential aspects in non-compliance with professional ethics. Therefore, it is hoped that the medical authorities will try to remove the existing barriers by providing appropriate solutions, to witness the observance of rights in systems valleys in a better way.