Validation of the Korean Version of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale

Abstract

(1) Background: Research that examines moral courage has received a great deal of attention from scholars and practitioners in recent years due to the impact of moral distress experienced by nurses. Although it needs to identify the phenomenon related to moral courage among nurses, there has been a lack of instrumentation to investigate the quantitative aspects of moral courage among Korean nurses. This study aimed to test the validity of the Korean version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted through convenience sampling of 243 nurses from two general hospitals in South Korea. (3) Results: The Korean version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale was developed from construct validity evidence, including 12 items in four domains: ‘Compassion and true presence’, ‘Moral integrity’, ‘Moral responsibility’, and ‘Commitment to good care’. Concurrent validity was obtained according to the significant correlation coefficients among the variables: moral courage, moral sensitivity, and professional moral courage. (4) Discussion: Our research contributes to the knowledge and understanding of moral courage in the nursing context and encourages future researchers to conduct a quantitative analysis of moral courage among Korean nurses using the validated K-NMCS.