MIDTERM Flashcards
The consideration of ethical issues is an essential component of providing care within the therapeutic nurse-client relationship. Nurses may encounter ethical situations in their everyday practice. HOW AS A NURSE WOULD YOU ACHIEVE THIS?
Understanding and communicating the clients’ beliefs and values, as well as their own, helps nurses recognize ethical conflicts and work through them if they do occur.
- Are strongly held personal beliefs - ideals we strive to uphold
- Are enduring beliefs or attitudes about the worth of a person, object, idea, or action
- Are both consciously and unconsciously acquired
- Are revealed in our behaviour – verbal and non verbal communication
- Repeated patterns of behaviour tell as a lot about what a person values
- Whether or not we realize it, our values influence our behaviour, the choices we make, how we see an issue and how we respond
VALUES
• Are formed from an early age and are learned.
• Influencing factors:
•
o Family, friends, educators
o The socio-cultural environment a person lives in
o Life experiences
o Religion
o Mass media
o
social media: facebook, twitter, instagram
VALUE FORMATION
• Personal and professional values can be transmitted
•
o eg. you learn personal values from family, friends, peers, life experiences
o eg. you learn professional nursing values from clinical and classroom experiences, teachers, nurses
Values Transmission
- Results in greater self-awareness and personal growth
- Requires conscious, deliberate examination of one’s values
- Is the process by which a person reflects on, identifies, names, and develops his or her own individual values
- Helps a person understand why he or she behaves a certain way
Values Clarification
involves deliberate examination of one’s thoughts, beliefs, feelings, physical and emotional responses to others and situations.
Reflection
• Reflection involves deliberate examination of one’s thoughts, beliefs, feelings, physical and emotional responses to others and situations.
• It requires honesty with self:
• What are my core values and beliefs and how did I get them?
• What are my biases about others and how did I get them?
• Does my behaviour – physical and emotional responses - express what I truly believe? If not, how can I change this?
Dialogue with others is helpful. It helps you:
• Articulate your point of view
• Hear and understand others’ points of view and gain a sense of their values
• Realize there are different ways of understanding the same thing
Values Clarification
- Requires honest, open communication and discussion, and mutual respect
- Requires active listening and a willingness to try to understand the other person’s perspective
Effective dialogue
Values clarification helps you?
- Freely choose to keep, discard or adopt new values
- Know why you prize and cherish your values and beliefs - and explain this to others
- Act on your beliefs and values in a consistent pattern. You walk your talk
• Ethical relationships require us to be fully aware of our own values and beliefs
• Every person has their own understanding of a situation. We need:
•
o To know why we react and feel the way we do in a given situation
o To know what “pushes our buttons” and why
o To be open to other people’s ways of understanding the same thing
Self-Awareness
- Reflect the core beliefs that guide the behaviour and decision making of members of the professional group
- Determine how members of the professional group frame and address problems
- Are reflected in the professional group’s mission and vision statements, and code of ethics
- Inform others about the type and quality of service or interactions they can expect when interacting with members of the profession.
- Usually reflect societal values, thus, change over time in response to changes in societal values
Professional Values
- In Ontario, the College of Nurses Ethics Practice Standard identifies core values that all nurses who are licensed in the province are expected to abide by.
- When the CNO assesses a member’s behaviour, it considers how well the nurse adhered to and embodied the CNO’s professional values.
- Professional nursing associations (e.g. the RPNAO) also develop codes of ethics outlining the values that are important to them.
Professional Values
- Workplaces also have their own set of values
- Values may be overt – e.g. vision and mission statements
- Values may be covert – e.g. not recognized or known unless a person is employed or a patient/family member
- When you accept employment, there is an assumption that you are willing and ready to commit to the values of the agency/institution.
- Having a clear understanding of your personal values and nursing’s professional values will enable you to confidently assess whether a potential employer is right for you.
Institutional Values
- Professional values build on and expand personal values.
- Your socialization into the nursing profession exposes you to nursing’s professional values.
- Your personal values may compliment nursing’s professional values or conflict with them.
- Nurses are part of a team consisting of our clients, other health professionals, and the public.
- Every person has their own unique combination of values that influence beliefs about how a situation should evolve or how others should behave.
- When team members have conflicting values and beliefs about an issue, it can be challenging.
Marrying Personal and Professional Values
- Best addressed if we have clarified our values as discussed previously
- Requires mutual respect, honesty, active listening, and open communication among all involved parties
- If a patient is involved, his or her right to choose must be respected – some exceptions may apply
Values Conflict
- We all have our own unique sets of values and nurses need to know how clients value health as they define it
- Nurses may need to help clients identify what their values are
- We need to be able to help clients learn how personal values affect their understanding and responses to the health issues they face
- Nurses must take care not to impose their own values and beliefs on the client
- Refer to Chapter 4 of your Burkhardt et al. text (2010) for information on clarifying values with patients
Helping Clients Clarify Values
. The CNO has identified 7 values as being most important in providing nursing care in Ontario, LIST THE SEVEN VALUES
CLIENT WELL-BEING CLIENT CHOICE PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALLY RESPECT FOR LIFE MAINTAINING COMMITMENTS TRUTHFULLNESS FAIRNESS
health and welfare, and preventing or removing harm.
eg. keeping the bed low and call bell in reach
eg. keeping pain under control
Eg. health teaching
eg. putting slippers on client’s feet to prevent slipping
o client well-being
right to the information necessary to make choices, and right to consent and right to refuse care
eg. right to know diagnosis to choose course of treatment
eg. respecting a client’s right to choose lifestyle choices, such as diet, smoking, or substance abuse
o client choice
limited access to a person, the person’s body, conversations, bodily functions or objects immediately associated with the person.
important aspects of privacy need to be identified by individual clients
eg. all things said within client interview should be kept between physician, nurse and client
eg. closing the curtains
eg. not talking about someone in the halls
o privacy and confidentiality
human life is precious and needs to be respected, protected and treated with consideration
considerations of the quality of life
eg. pain control
eg. respecting dnr
eg. providing comfort measures for palliative patients
o respect for life
obligation to maintain the commitments they assumed as regulated health professionals.
maintaining commitments means keeping promises, being honest and meeting implicit or explicit obligations toward their clients, themselves, each other, the nursing profession, other members of the health care team and quality practice settings.
eg. providing pain medication on a regular schedule, or whenever client is in pain and able to receive more medication
o maintaining commitments
speaking or acting without intending to deceive.
also refers to providing enough information to ensure the client is informed.
omissions are as untruthful as false information
eg. not giving false information or false promises
o truthfulness
allocating health care resources on the basis of objective health-related factors
eg. not playing favourites
o fairness
• concerned with right and wrong behaviour
• analyzes what we “ought” to do in a specific situation
•
o what our obligations to others are
o what kinds of behaviour we should expect from others
ETHICS
WHAT ARE THREE INFLUENCES OF ETHICS
o conscience
o beliefs
o law
- based on the moral theories
- serve as rules to guide moral conduct.
- Help us be consistent in our approach on particular issues.
- Assume we have genuine regard and respect for the value and uniqueness of every person
Ethical Principles
Why Study Ethics?
• to be able to practice safely for the client
- Are sets of principles accepted by all members of a profession
- Do not provide a step-by-step formula for professional behaviour
- Do not stipulate how values should be prioritized or balanced in practice
- Serve as guidelines for professional conduct
Professional Codes of Ethics
WHAT DOES THE CNO REQUIRE FROM ALL NURSES WHO ARE REGISTERED IN ONTARIO?
to practice in accordance with its Ethics practice standard
WHO DOES THE CNO ENCOURAGE nurses to consult with?
colleagues and others with expertise in ethics, to take courses and attend conferences on ethics
Why do nurses have a good understanding of ethics?
TEST QUESTION
Tort:
Because someone can be harmed by someone else’s action - intentional or unintentional
Unintentional - when an act or omission causes unintended injury or harm to another person
If a physician makes an error; such as, abuse. You must contact WHO?
TEST QUESTION
If a physician makes an error; such as, abuse. You must contact the physician college
When a nurse is deciding to refuse an assignment or discontinue care the primary concern is?
client safety and well being
What are the 3 out of the 13 controlled acts nurses can perform?
- Performing a prescribed procedure below the dermis or mucus membrane
- admin a substance by injection or inhalation, *putting an instrument, hand or beyond the ear, anal, vagina, ect
Distinguish between ethical distress and residue.
Moral Distress
• occurs when someone faces a moral problem that seem to have a clear solution, yet cannot follow moral beliefs due to institutional or other restraints
• typically there are no moral claims
• the right action is clear, yet nearly impossible to pursue
• eg. nurses in the hurried atmosphere of hospital same-day surgery report that they are expected to have sedated patient sign connect forms, recognizing that the physicians have often neglected to explain the procedure fully. Nurse knows this practice does not respect patients right’s to be in formed, but feel that they have neither the personal authority nor access to decision-making channels; and therefore, feel powerless to making changes
Moral Residue
• the tendency for moral distress to linger
• long-lasting and powerfully integrated into one’s thoughts and views of the self
• can be damaging to the self and one’s career, particularly when morally distressing episodes repeat over time
When you’re going on the CNO website the professional standards provide a link to?
Professional standards provide a link to other documents
• Are broad ethical theories that outline accepted moral judgments and help determine correct moral action
Ethical Frameworks
- a form of teleology
- forward-looking theory based on the perspective of how you look at it
- the right action is that which has the greatest utility or usefulness
utilitarianism:
- obligation to tell the truth.
* not lying, deceiving, or withholding information.
Veracity
Means “self-governing”
Autonomy
•Presumes that an autonomous person:
o Is respected by others
o Is able to determine personal goals
o Has the capacity to make decisions
o Has the freedom to act upon choices
Threats to patient autonomy
- knowledge and authority of health care providers provides them with more power than the patient (challenged by patient knowledge via internet, etc.)
- patient role is often dependent and patients are expected to comply with tx
- health care routines are institution and care provider centred - not client centred
- associated with the Latin maximum primum non nocere “above all (or first) do no harm”.
- obligation to not deliberately inflict harm or injury (physical or emotional)
Non-maleficence
• Sets a higher standard than non-maleficence
• it requires you to take steps to help others, to do or promote good
•
o Eg. the CNO requires us to act in ways that benefit patients
• Lays the groundwork for the trust society places in nurses and in the health care system.
• Involves proactive interventions to:
•
o Do or promote good
o Prevent or refrain from harmful acts
o Remove evil or harm
Beneficence
a “father knows best” attitude, often associated with the principle of beneficence.
• Paternalism
the intentional overriding of a person’s wishes, to protect them from the harmful consequences of their choices.
•
o eg. The person overriding another’s wishes usually justifies the action by claiming he/she is acting in the person’s best interests by preventing or removing harm.
• Paternalism
established and maintained by the nurse through the nurse’s use of professional nursing knowledge, skill, and caring attitudes and behaviours to provide nursing services that contribute to the client’s health and well-being.
The therapeutic relationship
• The relationship is based on trust, respect and intimacy and requires the appropriate use of the power inherent in the care provider’s role
The therapeutic relationship
• This ethical framework is designed to provide nurses with?
direction in identifying and resolving ethical situations.
• Continuing education about ethical issues and conflicts will help nurses and other health care professionals
understand and resolve new ethical situations
• Ongoing self-reflection and further discussion with peers about these issues will contribute to?
The nurses’ ability to resolve ethical situations in their practice
• Consideration of ethical issues is an essential component of ?
providing care within the therapeutic nurse-client relationship.
•Nurses encounter _______ ______, __________ and in their everyday practice
ethical conflict, uncertainty and distress
•Continuous changes in the health care system, in areas such as___________ and in ________, contribute to these ______ _______.
technology, values contribute to these ethical dilemmas
________________and ____________beliefs and values helps nurses to prevent ethical conflicts and to work through them when they do occur.
Understanding and communicating
What are some types of ethical concern?
- When two or more ethical values apply to a situation, but these values support diverging courses of action, an ethical conflict or dilemma exists.
- Nurses may experience ethical uncertainty when faced with a situation in which they are unsure of what values apply or even where the moral problem is.
- They may also experience ethical distress when they know the “right” thing to do, but various constraints make doing the “right” thing difficult
Resolving ethical conflict by?
- Working through and understanding ethical situations is an ongoing part of care.
- It is not always possible to find a resolution to a conflict that satisfies everyone. At these times, the best possible outcome is identified in consultation with the client, and the health care team works to achieve that outcome.
Ethical Decision Making Guide
- Gather data and identify conflicting moral claims
- Identify key players
- Determine different perspectives
- Determine desired outcomes
- Identify options
- Choose a course of action and act on it
- Evaluate the outcome
Ethical decision making requires?
careful, thoughtful deliberation.