Perceptions of academic integrity among nursing students.

PURPOSE

Academic dishonesty is growing among nursing students. Reasons for this growth can be categorized into student, faculty, and system factors. Nursing faculty designed a study to explore this problem.

CONCLUSIONS

We identified three themes: characteristics of students with academic integrity, patient safety, and professional outcomes. Exploring student perceptions of academic integrity can help faculty design measures to prevent dishonesty in these three areas.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

We recommend fostering culture change through strategies that target students, faculty, and systems. These strategies include peer mentoring, role modeling integrity, enhancing awareness of what constitutes cheating, and developing policies that promote honesty.