Accountability in nursing: reflecting on ethical codes and professional standards of nursing practice from a global perspective.

The concept of accountability is a concept closely aligned with public trust and confidence with a healthcare discipline. It is of vital importance to the discipline of nursing to define and examine the obligations and duties of professional nurse. The term is referred to and often defined through international and national professional codes of nursing and in standards of nursing practice documents. This column will begin exploration of the concept with offering a definition from a humanbecoming perspective.