Nursing Ethics and Ethical Dilemmas Quiz

Ethics in Communication and Nurse-Patient Relationships

• Ethics in healthcare focuses on determining what's good and valuable for individuals and society.
• The American Nurses Association (ANA) code of ethics is a foundation for professional nursing, emphasizing accountability, responsibility, advocacy, and confidentiality.
• Key ethical principles in healthcare include autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and fidelity.
• Autonomy involves patient involvement in all aspects of care, including surgical procedure reviews with risk and benefit discussions.
• Beneficence involves taking positive actions to help others, fundamental to nursing and medicine.
• Non-maleficence is the commitment to doing no harm, balancing risks and benefits of care.
• Justice is about access to health care resources, including insurance, hospital locations, and services like organ transplants.
• Fidelity involves keeping promises and following through on actions and interventions.

Basic Terms in Health Ethics

• Principles like autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and fidelity apply to ethical dilemmas and decisions in healthcare.
• Nurses need to understand and apply these principles during their work.
• Value clarification is crucial to understand and respect values of others, and how to act on personal beliefs.
• Ethical dilemmas occur due to conflicting values.
• Clarifying values is important for ethical discourse and decision-making.

Nursing Point of View

• Nurses often engage with patients for longer periods compared to other disciplines.
• During this interaction, details about patient family life, coping mechanisms, and preferences might be revealed.
• Understanding these aspects can guide care decisions.
• Patient privacy should be considered and respected at all times.

Processing an Ethical Dilemma

• Ethical dilemmas frequently cause distress and controversy for both patients and caregivers.
• An ethical dilemma is solved by considering all relevant factors, including patient wishes and feelings.
• Resolving an ethical dilemma is similar to the nursing process.

Issues in Health Care Ethics

• Quality of life is a key consideration in healthcare, and researchers develop measures of quality of life to evaluate certain medical choices.
• Assessing and considering quality of life is relevant to futile care, cancer therapy, assisted suicide, and DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) discussions.
• The question of quality of life is central to discussions about these decisions and the ethical framework surrounding them.
• Other ethical concerns include genetic screening where the future health risks of a patient need to be evaluated before the legal abortion period.
• Care at the end of life involves interventions that may be deemed futile or inappropriate.
• Access to care is another ethical concern.

Professional Nursing Code of Ethics

• A code of ethics is a set of guiding principles for members of a profession.
• The code is a resource for understanding correct practice or behavior.
• The code provides guidelines to resolve ethical dilemmas or questions that may arise.
• The ANA regularly reviews and revises the code to reflect changes in practice and social norms.

Developing Communication Skills

• Each individual's culture and education influences their perceptions.
• Understanding different senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, and their impact on a patient's perception, is critical.
• Effective communication techniques are essential but applying them correctly can be challenging.
• Identifying appropriate tools and techniques is important in every unique patient interaction, especially for sensitive diagnoses like cancer or end-of-life issues.

Levels of Communication

• Interpersonal communication is one-on-one, often face-to-face, and essential to nursing practice.
• Small group communication occurs in committees, support groups, or research teams, where shared goals and group dynamics are important aspects.
• Public communication occurs during presentations, conferences, and discussions with groups, presenting scholarly work, or teaching.

Basic Elements of the Communication Process

• This refers to the parts of communication like:
• Referent: the stimulus or event that motivates communication
• Sender & Receiver roles in the communication process
• Message: the content of the communication
• Channel: the method of communication
• Feedback: a reaction from the receiver
• Environment: the time and place of communication
• Interpersonal variables influence understanding

Forms of Communication - Verbal

• Vocabulary: including medical jargon, which can be confusing for patients unfamiliar with health care terms.
• Denotative and connotative meaning: understanding meanings of words shared, and avoiding issues of differing meanings or opinions.
• Using clear pacing and timing for better comprehension and fewer misunderstandings.
• Maintaining clarity and brevity is crucial and using appropriate language creates a better understanding between healthcare providers and patients.

Forms of Communication - Nonverbal

• Nonverbal communication factors include body language (facial expressions, eye contact, space), appearance, and posture, which is critical to expressing care and respect.
• Cultural context can impact the interpretation of nonverbal cues.
• Good nonverbal communication skills make it easy for patients to comprehend medical instructions, or healthcare providers to address patient's needs successfully.
• Nurses need to understand that people react (nonverbally) to their environment and personal space may be affected by emotions or feelings.

Nurse-Health Care Team Relationships

• Collaboration and communication within the health care team is essential to patient safety.
• Communication styles can influence the relationship.
• Understanding and utilizing tools for effective communication are important.
• Lateral violence should be avoided.

Elements of Professional Communication

• Courtesy and kindness are essential aspects of professional communication.
• Appropriate and respectful use of names is very important, in terms of communicating with patients based on cultural and personal preferences.