title: Nurse moral disengagement.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ethics is a founding component of the nursing profession; however, nurses sometimes find it difficult to constantly adhere to the required ethical standards. There is limited knowledge about the factors that cause a committed nurse to violate standards; moral disengagement, originally developed by Bandura, is an essential variable to consider.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed at developing and validating a nursing moral disengagement scale and investigated how moral disengagement is associated with counterproductive and citizenship behaviour at work.
  
  
  METHODS
  The research comprised a qualitative study and a quantitative study, combining a cross-validation approach and a structural equation model.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 60 Italian nurses (63% female) involved in clinical work and enrolled as students in a postgraduate master's programme took part in the qualitative study. In 2012, the researchers recruited 434 nurses (76% female) from different Italian hospitals using a convenience sampling method to take part in the quantitative study.
  
  
  METHODS
  All the organisations involved and the university gave ethical approval; all respondents participated on a voluntary basis and did not receive any form of compensation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The nursing moral disengagement scale comprised a total of 22 items. Results attested the mono-dimensionality of the scale and its good psychometric properties. In addition, results highlighted a significant association between moral disengagement and both counterproductive and citizenship behaviours.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results showed that nurses sometimes resort to moral disengagement in their daily practice, bypassing moral and ethical codes that would normally prevent them from enacting behaviours that violate their norms and protocols.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The nursing moral disengagement scale can complement personnel monitoring and assessment procedures already in place and provide additional information to nursing management for designing interventions aimed at increasing compliance with ethical codes by improving the quality of the nurses' work environment.
authors.affiliation: Sapienza University of Rome, Italy roberta.fida@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fida
authors.affiliation: Coventry University, UK.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tramontano
authors.affiliation: International Telematic University (UNINETTUNO), Italy.
authors.forename: Marinella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paciello
authors.affiliation: University of Eastern Finland, Finland.
authors.forename: Mari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kangasniemi
authors.affiliation: Policlinico Tor Vergata, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sili
authors.affiliation: University of Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bobbio
authors.affiliation: Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Barbaranelli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000523:psychology*; D004511:Education, Nursing, Graduate; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000941:ethics*; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000941:ethics* / Q000523:psychology; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Citizenship behaviour; counterproductive work behaviour; moral disengagement; stress; validation