Table 1.

Items of the applied ethical decision-making confidence scale.

Items (“Please rate your confidence in your ability to…”)
1. Recognize a genuine ethical dilemma in practice
2. Make a sound ethical decision
3. Explain your ethical decisions using correct ethical terminology and language
4. Provide a clear statement of the personal values that guide your ethical decision-making and practice
5. Articulate legal guidelines related to complex ethical issues in patient care (i.e., assisted suicide, informed consent, research involving minors)
6. Articulate the difference between ethical dilemmas, moral distress, issues related to interprofessional collaboration and communication, difficult patients, etc.
7. Articulate the definition of moral distress and provide an example of your experience of moral distress in your practice
8. Identify ethical issues in complex patient care (i.e., identify scenarios requiring ethical decision-making and/or ethical consult team guidance
9. Apply ethical decision-making models or structured processes to complex clinical problems
10. Participate in and/or guide mediation related to complex clinical problems involving ethical dilemmas or moral distress
11. Recognize and manage moral distress in self and others
12. Role model collaborative problem solving in complex clinical problems involving ethical dilemmas or moral distress
13. Engage in preventative ethics initiatives to address the ethical environment in your practice area
14. Mentor others to develop ethical practice behaviors
15. Address barriers to ethical practice through systems changes
16. Use preventative ethics to decrease unit level moral distress
17. Engage in health policy initiatives supporting social justice
18. Provide leadership at the unit, organizational, local, state and federal level for policy change initiatives to address social justice issues in health care

Notes: five-point Likert-type scale: 1-very low, 2-low, 3-moderate, 4-high, 5-very high per item.