TY - THES ID - 135094264 TI - Measuring Moral Courage of nurses in Flanders, Belgium: Dutch translation of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale and a descriptive cross-sec tional study AU - Konings, Kasper AU - Dierckx de Casterlé, Bernadette AU - Gastmans, Chris AU - KU Leuven. Faculteit Geneeskunde. Opleiding Master in de verpleegkunde en de vroedkunde (Nieuw programma vanaf 2017- 2018) (Leuven) PY - 2019 PB - Leuven KU Leuven. Faculteit Geneeskunde DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:135094264 AB - Purpose: The objective of this study is to make a Dutch translation of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale (NMCS), to describe the level of nurses’ self-assessed moral courage and associated sociodemographic factors in Flanders, Belgium and to provide data for further international research. Background: A 21-item scale was validated in 2018 in Finland with the purpose of measuring moral courage among nurses. The NMCS consists of 4 subscales: Compassion and true presence, moral responsibility, moral integrity and commitment to good care. Methods: A forward/backward translation method was applied to translate the English NMCS to Dutch and a pilot study was conducted to improve readability and understandability. A nonexperimental, descriptive, cross-sectional exploratory design was used to conduct a survey on a convenience sample of nurses in a major university hospital in Belgium. Descriptive analysis was used. Findings: A total of 353 nurses (response rate 45.4%) completed the Dutch NMCS. Nurses’ mean score of the 21-item NMCS was 3.80 (SD: 0.55, range: 2.24–5). The Dutch NMCS had a total Cronbach alpha of 0.906. The total NMCS score was associated with age (P<0.001), experience (P<0.001), professional function (P<0.001), level of education (P=0.027) and personal interest. (P<0.001). Conclusion: Moral courage, as a virtue, is a skill that may be gained over time and taught through school curricula, self-study and employee workshops. Environmental factors such as the organization's hierarchy and climate may have an impact on the level of moral courage of nurses. Creating a culture which enables moral courage can be a first step to enhance this virtue in nurses. Key words: moral courage, nursing ethics, virtue ethics, moral distress, instrument translation, cross sectional study. ER -