Provision 5
The nurse has moral duties to self as a person of inherent dignity and worth including an expectation of a safe place to work that fosters flourishing, authenticity of self at work, and self-respect through integrity and professional competence.
5.3 Integrity
Personal integrity is an aspect of wholeness of character that requires reflection and discernment; its maintenance is a self-regarding duty. Acting with integrity is not the same as following rules, carrying out orders, following commands or adhering to laws/policies without moral discernment. Nurses may face threats to their integrity in any work environment. Such threats may include requests or requirements to deceive patients, withhold information, falsify records, or misrepresent research aims.
Nurses have a right and a duty to act according to their personal and professional values and to accept compromise only if reaching a compromise preserves the nurse’s moral integrity and does not jeopardize the dignity or well-being of the nurse or others. While there are shared values in nursing, nurses are not expected to hold the same personal values as one another. Nurses have an obligation to express their concern individually or collectively when their integrity is compromised by patterns of institutional behavior or professional practice norms that erode the ethical environment, causing emotional and moral distress. These threats also undermine nurses’ ability to exercise their moral agency, which is tied to their moral identity and the trust required of their relationships.