diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/10400-sysrc.yml b/changelogs/fragments/10400-sysrc.yml
index 6eb21104fa..ac5d5a5f3f 100644
--- a/changelogs/fragments/10400-sysrc.yml
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/10400-sysrc.yml
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 bugfixes:
-  - "sysrc - use shlex to improve parsing of ``sysrc -e -a`` output (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/issues/10394, https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/10400)."
+  - "sysrc - use ``shlex`` to improve parsing of ``sysrc -e -a`` output (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/issues/10394, https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/10400)."
diff --git a/plugins/modules/sysrc.py b/plugins/modules/sysrc.py
index 5aa252d74c..1202883c23 100644
--- a/plugins/modules/sysrc.py
+++ b/plugins/modules/sysrc.py
@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ class Sysrc(object):
         if self.value is None:
             return self.name in conf
         else:
-            return self.name in conf and conf[self.name] == self.value
+            return conf.get(self.name) == self.value
 
     def contains(self):
         (rc, out, err) = self.run_sysrc('-n', self.name)