Perspectives on Developing Moral Courage in Pre-licensure Education: A Qualitative Study

Nurse Education in Practice (07/23) Vol. 70 Wawersik, Dawn M.; Boutin, Emile R.; Gore, Teresa; et al.

Researchers explored health professionals' viewpoints on teaching moral courage in pre-licensure educational curricula. They organized four semi-structured focus groups involving 14 health professions educators; 13 participated in individual interviews. An analysis of the interviews identified no new themes on moral courage; however, there were different ideas on the attainability of moral courage. One of the themes was that moral courage could be attained in particular conditions, such as with faculty development, explicit expectations and when errors are normalized. "The most important aspects were that individual personalities, beliefs and perception of the organizational or team culture all play a role in making decisions," the authors noted. These findings highlight the need for leadership education and to promote disclosure and assist with formulating moral courage academic guidelines to enhance healthcare error reporting and speaking up behaviors, they concluded.

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