Nursing is a stressful profession, with high levels of burnout among employees. Stress and burnout have been studied extensively in nursing, primarily in terms of organizational and social sources, as well as psychological factors. Studies of Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), the trait that increases one's potential to be overwhelmed by certain aversive stimuli, both internally and environmentally, has recently provided increased empirical insight into the areas of stress and burnout. However, SPS has not been studied exclusively or expansively within the context of nursing. The present research explores major nursing stressors and burnout levels in nurses that are considered highly sensitive by nature compared to their less sensitive peers. Participants from Facebook, Allnurses, Reddit, and a southern Texas hospital were recruited for this study. SPS was found to be a significant predictor for stress and burnout among nurses. Further significant findings are also discussed.

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Self-efficacy is the assessment of one's capacity to perform tasks. Previous research has demonstrated that self-efficacy impacts ethical behavior and attitudes but its effect on ethical cognition and perceptions has not been studied. For the present study, participants analyzed an ethical dilemma after either high or low self-efficacy was induced. Participants analyzed the dilemma using one of two cognitive problem-solving techniques (a structured cognitive tool or an unstructured cognitive technique) versus a third, control group, and what participants wrote about the problem was content-analyzed to determine how ethical cognition is impacted by selfefficacy. Additionally, perceptions of the ethical problem were examined. Results revealed that differences in self-efficacy did not lead to changes in ethical cognition, but they did lead to changes in perceptions of ethical problems. Implications of these findings are discussed.

While the ethical use of deception has been discussed in literature, the ethics and acceptability of nursing deception has yet to be studied. The current study examined nurses’ and nursing students’ ratings of the ethics and acceptability of nursing deception. We predicted that nurses and nursing students would rate a truthful vignette as more ethical than a deceptive vignette. We also predicted that participants would rate nursing deception as unethical and unacceptable. A mixed design was used to examine ethics scores as a within-subjects factor and order as a between-groups design factor. A total of 131 nurses and nursing students were recruited from university nursing programs and hospitals in Texas. Participants were provided with a truthful vignette and deceptive vignette and used the Multidimensional Ethics Scale-Revised 1 to rate each vignette. Participants also completed the Lies in Nursing Ethics Questionnaire. The truthful nursing vignette was rated as more ethical than the deceptive vignette. Results indicated that most participants rated nursing deception as unethical, unacceptable, and a violation of the ANA ethical code. Some participants deemed that nursing deception may be acceptable within some cases. Age and years of experience were not related to the perceived ethics and acceptability of nursing deception. Nurses and nursing students believe that using deception with patients is unethical and unacceptable. However, some participants believed that deception may be warranted within some cases. These findings may reflect nurses’ placing the patient at the core of their values and viewing honesty as important for the nurse-patient relationship. Further implications and directions are discussed.