Background: Nursing students experience ethical conflicts and challenges during their clinical education. These may lead to moral distress and disturb the learning process.
Objectives: This study aimed to explore and to evaluate the nursing students' ethical challenges in the clinical settings in Iran.
Research design: This was a mixed-methods study with an exploratory sequential design.
Participants and research context: A total of 37 and 120 Iranian nursing students participated in the qualitative and quantitative phases, respectively.
Ethical considerations: The ethical committee of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran, approved the protocol of the study.
Findings: Three main categories were extracted from qualitative data including Low attention of nurses to the patients' preferences; Lack of authority; and Inadequate support. A total of 97% of the students had more than one ethical challenge in clinical settings and 48% of them stated that their challenges did not resolve. The total score of perceived ethical challenges was 62.03 ± 9.17, which was moderate. The highest mean score related to the "Low attention of nurses to the patients' preferences" subscale.
Discussion: The finding confirmed most of the existing results of other international researches about the frequency and kinds of baccalaureate nursing students' ethical challenges.
Conclusion: Identifying student ethical challenges helps teachers to manage their clinical learning process better. This study may provide a view for the nurses, clinical educators, and managers toward nursing students' ethical challenges and their impact on nursing students' clinical experiences.
Keywords: Clinical setting; Iran; ethical challenge; mixed-methods study; nursing students.