Abstract
Recent developments in healthcare settings have heightened the need for addressing poor ethical decision-making and ethical leadership practices. Healthcare users perceive nurses as having poor attitudes, lacking integrity, acting unethically, or showing no compassion for patient care. The deterioration of ethical behaviour among nurses calls for crucial ethical discussions among nurse managers, educators, researchers, and healthcare policymakers. Nurses should be encouraged to understand their professional responsibilities and develop ethical awareness through practice-based interventions and education. Therefore, promoting caring, ethical leadership is essential to rebuild healthcare users’ trust and hope. The purpose of this study was to systematically review primary research studies that developed, critically examined, and evaluated instruments that measure caring, ethical leadership. Furthermore, the study aimed to describe and measure the characteristics of a caring, ethical leader and conceptualise findings, as well as develop and describe strategies to facilitate ethical leadership among nurse leaders.
A quantitative methodological approach was used, and the study was conducted in phases. In phase one of the study, the researcher conducted a scoping review on primary research studies, which developed, critically examined, and evaluated instruments that measure caring, ethical leadership. Only scholarly and peer-reviewed research studies written in English and published from 2010 to 2021 were considered. Six databases were included in the scoping review process. Boolean formatting operators were utilised and yielded (n=34) instruments to measure caring, ethical leadership. Additionally, the thematic analysis informed phase two and identified and the characteristics of a caring, ethical leader as being an ethical person, a caring person, and an ethical leader.
The e-Delphi tool was developed from the data analysis process and validated by the expert panel in phase two. The researcher recruited national and international experts to evaluate the strategies for nurse leaders to facilitate caring, ethical leadership in a healthcare environment. In phase three, the researcher described a conceptual framework based on the data collection process from the evaluation phase of the e- ...