Background:Today’s healthcare environment is often characterized by an ethically demanding worksituation, and nursing students need to prepare to meet ethical challenges in their future role. Moralsensitivity is an important aspect of the ethical decision-making process, but little is known regardingnursing students’ moral sensitivity and its possible development during nursing education.Objectives:The aims of this study were to investigate moral sensitivity among nursing students,differences in moral sensitivity according to sample sub-group, and the relation between demographiccharacteristics of nursing students and moral sensitivity.Research design:A convenience sample of 299 nursing students from one university completed aquestionnaire comprising questions about demographic information and the revised Moral SensitivityQuestionnaire. With the use of SPSS, non-parametric statistics, including logistic regression models,were used to investigate the relationship between demographic characteristics and moral sensitivity.Ethical considerations:The study followed the regulations according to the Swedish Ethical Review Actand was reviewed by the Ethics Committee of South-East Sweden.Findings:The findings showed that mean scores of nursing students’ moral sensitivity were found in themiddle to upper segment of the rating scale. Multivariate analysis showed that gender (odds ratio¼3.32),age (odds ratio¼2.09; 1.73), and parental status (odds ratio¼0.31) were of relevance to nursing students’moral sensitivity. Academic year was found to be unrelated to moral sensitivity.Discussion and conclusion:These demographic aspects should be considered when designing ethicseducation for nursing students. Future studies should continue to investigate moral sensitivity in nursingstudents, such as if and how various pedagogical strategies in ethics may contribute to moral sensitivity innursing students