Nurses once more top Gallup’s Ethics and Integrity Poll

According to a well known survey, nursing is the leading career by way of ethics and integrity. Among the professions surveyed by the yearbook Gallup Poll on Integrity/EthicsNurses have been at the highest of the list since 2001 and remain there after the last survey in December 2016.

In this study, 84% of respondents rated nurses very high or high as honest and ethical professionals. Nurses rank first amongst 22 professions included in the newest study.

“Nursing has had the incredible honor of being named the nation’s most trusted profession by the American public for the 15th consecutive year,” said Eileen Williamson, MSN, RN, senior vp and chief nursing officer at Nurse.com.

“Few nominations could be a greater professional honor than being ranked No. 1 among 22 professions surveyed by Gallup for integrity and ethical standards. As a nurse, I couldn’t be more proud of what the public thinks of my colleagues in the nursing profession.”

The survey asks respondents to rate the integrity and ethical standards of individuals in various fields, selecting from very high, high, medium, low and really low.

For the past 15 years, pharmacists and doctors have been just behind nurses, and members of Congress at the underside of the list.

This 12 months, 67% of respondents rated pharmacists highly or very highly, and 65% of doctors rated them highly or very highly. According to a Gallup poll, over all 15 years, as many as 79% of respondents rated nurses high or very high by way of honesty and ethics. “We have the opportunity to step into the most private and important moments in patients’ lives,” Williamson said.

“Our focus on confidentiality and professionalism is evident and has been noticed by both patients and the general public.” Gallup conducts surveys in the shape of telephone interviews with a random sample of at the least 1,000 adults aged 18 and older living within the United States. According to Gallup, the margin of sampling error on this 12 months’s survey was + or – 4 percentage points.

“A few other jobs [besides healthcare] perform so well in Gallup’s annual survey of integrity and ethical standards in various fields,” wrote Jim Norman in a web based article published December 19 on Gallup.com. “A healthy majority of the American public continues to demonstrate a willingness to trust the integrity and ethical standards of health care providers – nurses, doctors, pharmacists and dentists,” he wrote.

Nurses have topped the list yearly but once since Gallup began including nursing in its polls in 1999. Firefighters topped the list in 2001, when Gallup included the career in its survey after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “Whether nurses are at the bedside or in the conference room, we continue to be a trusted resource and an essential part of our nation’s health care system” – Pamela F. Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of American Nurses Association, ANA said in a press release.

“This survey reflects the trust the public has in us, and we will continue to work hard to maintain it.” A recent study within the United Kingdom showed similar results for 2016. According to a web based article published on December 5 by QZ.com, nurses were included for the primary time in an annual survey that evaluates the professionals most trusted by the general public.

“Of 1,019 British participants aged 15 and over, 93% trusted nurses to tell them the truth. Doctors and teachers were next on the list, with 91% and 88% respectively,” the article reads. “In Australia, nurses and firefighters were the most trusted (95% each), followed by doctors (94%), paramedics (94%) and pharmacists (93%),” based on a 2016 report. as stated within the article.

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