Background:In the past two decades, interest in the concept of ethical climate and in its research has increased in healthcare. Ethical climate is viewed as a type of organizational work climate, and defined as the shared perception of ethically correct behavior, and how ethical issues should be handled in the organization. Ethical climate as an important element of nursing environment has been the focus of several studies. However, scoping reviews of ethical climate research in nursing have not been conducted to (...) guide further research in this area.Objective:The purpose of this scoping review is to describe and analyze studies focusing on ethical climate in nursing environment to elicit an overall picture of the research in this field.Methods:A scoping review methodology guided by Arksey and O’Malley and Levac et al. was used. Studies were identified by conducting electronic searches on PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science Core Collection, PsycINFO, and Scopus and Philosophers’ Index databases. Of 1051 citations, 56 articles matched the inclusion criteria.Ethical considerations:This study was conducted according to good scientific guidelines.Findings:Ethical climate is a topical research area which has been explored with different methods and outcomes, in different environments, and has mainly been perceived positively. The focus of the studies was on finding associations between ethical climate and work-related factors such as job satisfaction, moral distress, and turnover intentions. Methodologically, research was rather homogeneous using quantitative, descriptive, and correlative research designs.Conclusion:Novel perspectives and more diverse methodological approaches paying attentions to issues affecting generalizability of the findings could expand our knowledge in this area. (shrink)

Attentional bias has been suggested to contribute to the persistence of substance use behavior. However, the empirical evidence for its proposed role in addiction is inconsistent. This might be due to the inability of commonly used measures to differentiate between attentional engagement and attentional disengagement. Attesting to the importance of differentiating between both components of AB, a recent study using the odd-one-out task showed that substance use was differentially related to engagement and disengagement bias. However, the AB measures derived from (...) the OOOT showed insufficient reliability to be used as a solid measure of individual differences. Therefore, the current study aimed to improve the reliability of the AB measures derived from the OOOT by using more distinct contrast stimuli, adding practice trials, increasing the number of trials, and by having participants perform the task in an alcohol-relevant context. We contrasted the original OOOT with the adapted OOOT and assessed AB in low- and high-drinking individuals. Participants were 245 undergraduate students who typically tend to drink either low or high amounts of alcohol. In one condition, AB was measured with the original OOOT in a typical laboratory context, whereas in the other condition, AB was measured with the OOOT-adapt in a bar context. The OOOT-adapt showed superior internal consistency, especially for the high-drinking group. Further, specifically the OOOT-adapt differentiated between low- and high-drinking participants showing that high drinkers engaged faster with alcohol cues than did low drinkers. Thus, the OOOT-adapt was found to be a promising candidate to reliably index AB in the context of alcohol use. The OOOT-adapt further showed superior criterion validity as it could differentiate between low- and high-drinking individuals, thereby adding to the evidence that AB might be involved in substance use behavior. (shrink)

Current cognitive models of addiction imply that speeded detection and increased distraction from substance cues might both independently contribute to the persistence of addictive behavior. Speeded detection might lower the threshold for experiencing craving, whereas increased distraction might further increase the probability of entering a bias-craving-bias cycle, thereby lowering the threshold for repeated substance use. This study was designed to examine whether indeed both attentional processes are involved in substance use disorders. Both attentional processes were indexed by an Odd-One-Out visual (...) search task in individuals diagnosed with alcohol use disorder and cannabis use disorder. To test whether the detection and/or the distraction component are characteristic for AUD and CUD, their indices were compared with matched individuals without these diagnoses. Individuals with CUD showed speeded detection of cannabis cues; the difference in detection between AUD and the comparison group remained inconclusive. Neither the AUD nor the CUD group showed more distraction than the comparison groups. The sample size of the CUD group was relatively small. In addition, participants made relatively many errors in the attentional bias task, which might have lowered its sensitivity to detect ABs. The current study provided no support for the proposed role of increased distraction in CUD and AUD. The findings did, however, provide support for the view that speeded detection might be involved in CUD. Although a similar trend was evident for AUD, the evidence was weak and remained therefore inconclusive. (shrink)