The Relevance of the Ethics of Understanding of Life in Nursing

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Rehnsfeldt,
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Care ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Ethical Care

The ultimate, universal goal of caring is described by the ethics of understanding of life. The ultimate goal of alleviating suffering is the progression of suffering as an existential sign of development of the understanding of life. The progression of suffering means to create meaning in suffering together with a caregiver. The aim of this study was to elaborate on the ethics of understanding of life in relation to phenomenological aspects of nursing care ethics. Inward and outward ethical decisions affect the patient’s understanding of life through practical ethical care. When the patient and caregiver encounter one another with different understandings of life, there is no development in the understanding of life and the patient may even be abused.

scholarly journals Nurse managers’ perspectives on working with everyday ethics in long-term care

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1669-1680
Author(s):  
Siri Andreassen Devik ◽  
Hilde Munkeby ◽  
Monica Finnanger ◽  
Aud Moe
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Care ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Nurse Managers ◽  
Home Nursing ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Ethical Competence ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
Ethical Care ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Home Nursing Care

Background: Nurse managers are expected to continuously ensure that ethical standards are met and to support healthcare workers’ ethical competence. Several studies have concluded that nurses across various healthcare settings lack the support needed to provide safe, compassionate and competent ethical care. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore and understand how nurse managers perceive their role in supporting their staff in conducting ethically sound care in nursing homes and home nursing care. Design and participants: Qualitative individual interviews were performed with 10 nurse managers with human resources responsibilities for healthcare workers in four nursing home wards and six home nursing care districts. Content analysis was used to analyse the data. Ethical considerations: The Norwegian Centre for Research Data granted permission for this study. Findings: The analysis resulted in seven subcategories that were grouped into three main categories: managers’ perception of the importance of the role, managers’ experiences of exercising the role and managers’ opportunities to fulfil the role. Challenges with conceptualizing ethics were highlighted, as well as lack of applicable tools or time and varying motivation among employees. Discussion: The leaders tended to perceive ethics as a ‘personal matter’ and that the need for and benefit of ethical support (e.g., ethics reflection) depended on individuals’ vulnerability, attitudes, commitment and previous experiences. The managers did not seem to distinguish between their own responsibility to support ethical competence and the responsibility of the individual employee to provide ethical care. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that nurse managers need support themselves, both to understand and to carry out their responsibilities to foster their staffs’ ethical conduct. Supporting staff in conducting ethically sound care requires more than organizing meeting places for ethical reflection; it also requires greater awareness and understanding of what ethical leadership means.

Storied Ethics: conversations in nursing care

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Skott
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Care ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Daily Experience ◽  
Moral World ◽  
Everyday Work ◽  
Ethical Care ◽  
Oncology Ward ◽  
Continual Learning

The purpose of this article is to discuss narration of ethical themes in nursing care. The text represents part of the findings of an ethnographic study aimed at description of everyday work on an oncology ward. Nurses on this ward are constantly involved in ethical care issues and narratives are told to share experiences. Of vital importance in ethical decision making is the perpetual creation of a mediating moral world constituted by daily experience. The need for making space in nursing for a continual learning conversation is expressed and in this I include writings of nursing theorists.

The `Little Extra' That Alleviates Suffering

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Arman ◽  
Arne Rehnsfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Students ◽  
Nursing Care ◽  
Clinical Evidence ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Caring Science ◽  
Ethical Care ◽  
Good Health Care

Nursing, or caring science, is mainly concerned with developing knowledge of what constitutes ideal, good health care for patients as whole persons, and how to achieve this. The aim of this study was to find clinical empirical indications of good ethical care and to investigate the substance of ideal nursing care in praxis. A hermeneutic method was employed in this clinical study, assuming the theoretical perspective of caritative caring and ethics of the understanding of life. The data consisted of two Socratic dialogues: one with nurses and one with nursing students, and interviews with two former patients. The empirical data are first described from a phenomenological approach. Observations of caregivers offering `the little extra' were taken to confirm that patients were `being seen', not from the perspective of an ideal nursing model, but from that of interaction as a fellow human being. The study provides clinical evidence that, as an ontological response to suffering, 'symbolic acts' such as giving the `little extra' may work to bridge gaps in human interaction. The fact that `little things' have the power to preserve dignity and make patients feel they are valued offers hope. Witnessing benevolent acts also paves the way for both patients and caregivers to increase their understanding of life.

Fürsorge als Prinzip?

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-20
Author(s):  
Hans-Uirich Dallmann
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Care ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Golden Rule ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Nursing Ethics ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Caring Relations ◽  
Justice And Care

Abstract For a long time the foundations of an Ethic of Nursing have been formulated in terms of Christian charity. The article discusses this concept by examining the roots of modern Nursing in the Kaiserswerther Diakonie. This Christian work -ethic is criticised by modern nursing ethics. lnstead of an Ethic of Charity an Ethic of Care is promoted by the common representatives of a modern ethics of nursing. But such as an Ethic of Christian Charity an Ethic of Care has to deal with those problems: the naturalizing of femininity, the asymmetry of persans in caring relations, the relation between justice and care, the relation between caring and nursing. Care ethics following Gilligan and her recipients are not able to solve these problems in a satisfactory way. Therefore it could be useful to reformulate the Christian notion of charity. It can be demonstrated that Agape is not combined with conceptions of subservience and self-denial. The difference between Eros as a perverted selfishness and Agape as selfless virtue cannot be held any langer. Agape tends to reciprocity which has its model in the Golden Rule. In addition Agape is no sentiment, but related to action -Agape is practiced justice.

scholarly journals ‘Busyness’ and the preclusion of quality palliative district nursing care

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 893-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Nagington ◽  
Karen Luker ◽  
Catherine Walshe
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Nursing Care ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Improve Quality ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Qualitative Research Study ◽  
Ethical Care

Ethical care is beginning to be recognised as care that accounts for the views of those at the receiving end of care. However, in the context of palliative and supportive district nursing care, the patients’ and their carers’ views are seldom heard. This qualitative research study explores these views. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 26 patients with palliative and supportive care needs receiving district nursing care, and 13 of their carers. Participants were recruited via community nurses and hospices between September 2010 and October 2011. Post-structural discourse analysis is used to examine how discourses operate on a moral level. One discourse, ‘busyness’, is argued to preclude a moral form of nursing care. The discourse of friendship is presented to contrast this. Discussion explores Gallagher’s ‘slow ethics’ and challenges the currently accepted ways of measuring to improve quality of care concluding that quality cannot be measured.

scholarly journals Level of Knowledge and Practice of Patient Care Ethics among Nurses in Pokhara

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Arati Timilsina ◽  
Bhagawati KC
Keyword(s):  
Patient Care ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Knowledge Level ◽  
Practice Level ◽  
Satisfactory Level ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge And Practice ◽  
Nurses Knowledge

Ethics deal with standards of conduct and moral judgment. Every day nurses require to make ethical decisions during patient care. They should have good knowledge and adequate practice of ethics to make ethical decisions. The aim of this study was to identify the knowledge and practice of patient care ethics among nurses. A descriptive cross sectional research design was used to conduct the study. Simple random sampling method was adopted to select 108 nurses among 133 nurses working in a regional hospital, Pokhara. Self-administered structured questionnaire schedule was used for data collection and analyzed using IBM SPSS Version 20. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square test was used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that 65.1 percent of nurses had satisfactory level knowledge and 76.4 percent had adequate practice level of patient care ethics. There was significant association between nurses knowledge level and professional qualification (p<.001). The level of practice does not have significant association with socio-demographic and job related variables. Similarly, no significant association between knowledge and practice level of patient care ethics was found. It concludes that the nurses with satisfactory level of knowledge and adequate level of practice are more than the nurses with unsatisfactory knowledge level and inadequate practice level of patient care ethics. Their practice of ethical principle is better than their knowledge in all principles except in the principle of justice. Nurses’ knowledge and practice of patient care ethics should be upgraded through educational and awareness programme. Janapriya Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 6 (December 2017), page: 17-28

scholarly journals Quality care as ethical care: a poststructural analysis of palliative and supportive district nursing care

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Nagington ◽  
Catherine Walshe ◽  
Karen A Luker
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Care ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Ethical Care ◽  
Poststructural Analysis

scholarly journals Ethical care requires pragmatic care research to guide medical practice under uncertainty

Trials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim E. Darsaut ◽  
Jean Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Random Allocation ◽  
Pragmatic Trials ◽  
Optimal Care ◽  
Care Research ◽  
Ethical Care ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Medical Interest ◽  
Practice Care

Abstract Background The current research-care separation was introduced to protect patients from explanatory studies designed to gain knowledge for future patients. Care trials are all-inclusive pragmatic trials integrated into medical practice, with no extra tests, risks, or cost, and have been designed to guide practice under uncertainty in the best medical interest of the patient. Proposed revision Patients need a distinction between validated care, previously verified to provide better outcomes, and promising but unvalidated care, which may include unnecessary or even harmful interventions. While validated care can be practiced normally, unvalidated care should only be offered within declared pragmatic care research, designed to protect patients from harm. The validated/unvalidated care distinction is normative, necessary to the ethics of medical practice. Care trials, which mark the distinction and allow the tentative use of promising interventions necessarily involve patients, and thus the design and conduct of pragmatic care research must respect the overarching rule of care ethics “to always act in the best medical interest of the patient.” Yet, unvalidated interventions offered in contexts of medical uncertainty cannot be prescribed or practiced as if they were validated care. The medical interests of current patients are best protected when unvalidated practices are restricted to a care trial protocol, with 1:1 random allocation (or “hemi-prescription”) versus previously validated care, to optimize potential benefits and minimize risks for each patient. Conclusion Pragmatic trials can regulate medical practice by providing (i) a transparent demarcation between unvalidated and validated care; (ii) norms of medical conduct when using tests and interventions of yet unknown benefits in practice; and eventually (iii) a verdict regarding optimal care.

Nursing Ethics in the Seventh-Day Adventist Religious Tradition

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 707-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Johnston Taylor ◽  
Mark F Carr
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Care ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Seventh Day Adventist ◽  
Missionary Work ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
Medical Missionary ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Case Based

Nurses’ religious beliefs influence their motivations and perspectives, including their practice of ethics in nursing care. When the impact of these beliefs is not recognized, great potential for unethical nursing care exists. Thus, this article examines how the theology of one religious tradition, Seventh-day Adventism (SDA), could affect nurses. An overview of SDA history and beliefs is presented, which explains why ‘medical missionary’ work is central to SDAs. Theological foundations that would permeate an SDA nurse’s view of the nursing metaparadigm concepts of person, health, environment (i.e. community), and nursing (i.e. service) are presented. The ethical principles guiding SDA nurses (i.e. principled, case-based, and care ethics) and the implications of these theological foundations for nurses are noted in a case study.

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