People living with mental disorders are in a vulnerable position when exercising their political, social, and civil rights, making them more susceptible than the general population to discrimination and stigma. In recent years, mental health practice ...
People living with mental disorders are in a vulnerable position when exercising their political, social, and civil rights, making them more susceptible than the general population to discrimination and stigma. In recent years, mental health practice has increasingly emphasized person-centered care, which seeks to enhance usefulness, participation, and equity by treating patients as individuals and safeguarding their autonomy and dignity. Moreover, mental health nurses, who provide care to vulnerable patients requiring support, and frequently encounter ethically challenging situations, must therefore possess strong ethical nursing competence and moral resilience to deliver person-centered care.
This study was conducted to assess the levels of ethical nursing competence, moral resilience, and person-centered care among mental health nurses, and to determine how ethical nursing competence and moral resilience influence person-centered care. The goal of this study is to provide foundational evidence that can promote person-centered care in psychiatric nursing practice.
This study was undertaken through an online survey of 220 nurses currently working at psychiatry-related workplace including tertiary hospitals, general hospitals, and psychiatric hospitals for more than 6 months in Republic of Korea from June 21 to July 19, 2025. Data from 188 of these nurses were utilized in the analysis. The research tools utilized were as follows: general characteristics, Ethical Nursing Competence Self-rating Scale for Clinical Nurses (ENC-S-CN), Rushton Moral Resilience Scale (RMRS), Person-Centered Practice Inventory-Staff (PCPI-S). The collected data were analyzed by frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis using SPSS Statistics 26.0.
The average ethical nursing competence score of the subjects who participated in this study was 62.09 (±6.61), the average moral resilience score was 47.63 (±7.69), and the average person-centered care score was 193.94 (±24.54). The analysis of differences according to general characteristics showed that person-centered care scores were significantly higher among mental health nurses with graduate-level education or above, those who reported having a religion, those who were married, those with at least seven years of psychiatric nursing experience, and those holding positions at the level of charge nurse. Correlation analyses demonstrated significant positive relationships between ethical nursing competence and moral resilience(r=.31, p<.001), between ethical nursing competence and person-centered care(r=.64, p<.001), and between moral resilience and person-centered care(r=.41, p<.001). In the hierarchical regression analysis, after controlling general characteristics (education level, religion, marital status, psychiatric nursing experience, and position), both ethical nursing competence(β=.50, p<.001) and moral resilience(β=.22, p<.001) had significant effects on person-centered care. Together, these variables accounted for 49% of the explained variance.
The results of this study demonstrate that ethical nursing competence and moral resilience are important factors that influence person-centered care among mental health nurses. Notably, the finding that nurses with higher educational attainment showed higher levels of person-centered care underscores the need for institutional support and encouragement to provide continuous and structured educational and training opportunities. Moreover, ethics education is an effective strategy for enhancing ethical nursing competence, highlighting the importance of implementing ongoing and periodic ethics programs that include content focused on assessing and strengthening moral resilience. This study contributes meaningful evidence by identifying the factors that influence person-centered care among mental health nurses and by offering a basis for developing educational programs aimed at reinforcing ethical nursing competence and moral resilience to improve person-centered care.