Background
Research that examines moral courage has received a great deal of attention from scholars and practitioners in recent years due to impact of moral distress experienced by nurses. Although it needs to identify the phenomenon related to moral courage among nurses, there has been little instrument to investigate quantitative aspects of moral courage among Korean nurses.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to verify the validity and reliability of Korean version of Nurses Moral Courage Scale.
Research design
A cross sectional study was conducted with a convenience sample of 243 nurses from 2 general hospitals in South Korea.
Ethical considerations
This study was approved by the Institute Review Board of Hallym University before data collection.
Results
A Korean version of Nurses Moral Courage Scale was developed from construct validity evidence and included 12 items in 4 domains: compassion and true presence, moral integrity, moral responsibility, and commitment to good care. Concurrent validity was significantly tested according to the correlation coefficients among the variables which were moral courage, moral sensitivity, and professional moral courage.
Discussion
This research can contribute to the knowledge of phenomenon of moral courage in nursing context and encourage further research to conduct a quantitative analysis in moral courage among Korean nurses by employing validated K-NMCS.