Social media use and ethics violations: Nurses' responses to hypothetical cases

Aim This study aimed to evaluate nurses' ability to evaluate ethical violations to hypothetical case studies involving social media use. Background Inappropriate use of social media necessitates health institutes, academic institutes, nurses and educators to consider occupational ethical principles while creating a policy and guide on the usage of social media. Method The data were collected confidentially from the nurses working at a university hospital in Turkey, using the Personal Information Form and the Ethic Case Form. The study was carried out using descriptive and inferential analysis. Findings Analysis of the data showed that the majority of the nurses had received training in ethics, used WhatsApp social media application most often, spent less than an hour a day on social media platforms and used social media to follow daily posts. Analyses of the ethical case evaluations showed that nurses' level of education and ethics training status was influential on their Case 1 evaluations and the length of time they had worked was effective in Case 2 evaluations. When Case 3 evaluations of nurses were analysed according to ethics training, statistically significant differences were found. The analyses of the Case 4 and Case 5 evaluations showed that no statistically significant differences were found according to nurses' descriptive characteristics. Conclusion The study determined that education level, ethical training status, the source of ethics training and the duration of their work in the profession were effective regarding the case evaluation of the nurses. Implications for nursing and health policy Nursing policymakers, educators, administrators and clinicians need to cooperate in the development of ethical awareness and creation of solutions to violations, the preparation of guidelines for social media use.