To effectively provide care, nurses should be knowledgeable and perform practices under thorough consideration and prudence. In Thailand, the sufficiency economy is viewed as a philosophy highlighting the principle of middle way life living for Thais. With this concept, the Thai people have been anticipated to recognize moderation, reasonableness, and to contain self-immunity for protectingthemselves from internal and external impactsof new technological stuff. Many studies widely reported about consequences of employing the sufficient economy philosophy in human life. Nevertheless, implementing this philosophy in nursing education is rare.
The purposes of this study were to develop activitiesfor enhancing ethical concern in nursing students and to clarify outcomes after the developed activities were implemented. The outcomes included students’ knowledge, ethical performances, and continuation of those performances. Also, students’ satisfaction on participating the activities was explored.
The population was 362 nursing studentsof Boromarajonnani college of Nursing, Ratchaburi in 2007.One hundred and eighty-six students were randomly selected.
A set of six activities underpinning concepts ofmoderation, reasonableness, and self-immunity was established. Each activity was designed based on the sufficiency economy philosophy. Once activities were developed and implemented, the students were asked to answer questions. A questionnaire was used as a tool to collect data of the previously mentioned outcomes. Alpha Cronbach’s Coefficient was employed to test the reliability. It was 0.72.
It was found that the samples’ knowledge and ethical development werein a very good level (90.2%). It was also acceptable that the developed activities established a unity amongst students (95.3%), encouraged working conventionally andenduring, diligence, cautiousness and honesty (94.8%). The samples showed high satisfaction on the activities(96.2%), particularly the activities ofliving clean (98.47%) and of healthy: from sophomore to freshmen (96.95%). The activity of Thai culture conservation wasidentified to be donemost frequently (87.79%), followed by that of the rubbish management (68.8%) and the recording incomes-expenses (63.36%).
In conclusion, the sufficiency economy philosophical conceptsenable students to gain ethical concern. The findings suggest that this philosophy should beintegrated into nursing education, practices, and also policy making.