Nursing ethics
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This study was conducted to gain opinions about euthanasia from nurses who work in intensive care units. The research was planned as a descriptive study and conducted with 186 nurses who worked in intensive care units in a university hospital, a public hospital, and a private not-for-profit hospital in Adana, Turkey, and who agreed to complete a questionnaire. Euthanasia is not legal in Turkey. ⋯ In some specific circumstances, 44.1% of the nurses thought that euthanasia was being practiced in our country. The most significant finding was that these Turkish intensive care unit nurses did not overwhelmingly support the legalization of euthanasia. Those who did support it were inclined to agree with passive rather than active euthanasia (P = 0.011).
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This study examined why intensive care unit (ICU) nurses experience difficulties in respecting the wishes of patients in end-of-life care in Japan. A questionnaire survey was conducted with ICU nurses working in Japanese university hospitals. The content of their narratives was analyzed concerning the reasons why the nurses believed that patients' wishes were not respected. ⋯ Many nurses wanted to respect the wishes of dying patients, but they questioned how patients die in ICUs and were therefore faced with ethical dilemmas. However, at the same time, many of the nurses realized that respecting patients' wishes about end-of-life care in an ICU would be difficult and that being unable to respect these wishes would often be unavoidable. The results thus suggest that there has been insufficient discussion about respecting the wishes of patients undergoing intensive care.
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This longitudinal study examined how nursing students' moral judgment changes after they become qualified nurses working in a hospital environment. The sample used was a group of 80 nursing students attending a university in Suwon, Korea, between 2001 and 2003. ⋯ The results were as follows: (1) the qualified nurses had significantly higher idealistic moral judgment scores than the nursing students; (2) the qualified nurses showed significantly higher realistic moral judgment scores than the nursing students; and (3) when comparing idealistic and realistic moral judgment scores, both the qualified nurses and the nursing students had higher scores for idealistic moral judgment. Further study is recommended to examine changes in moral judgment.
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The need for academics to get their work published can be fraught with problems, especially if they have to publish in the English language and within western culture, both of which may be unfamiliar to them. Before considering a submission, authors need to satisfy the rigors of their studies: suitability of the subject matter for a particular journal; concepts, literature and instruments; and if the English is adequate. These are issues of responsibility of authors to readers and, on the part of editors and reviewers, to authors and through them to students and readers of the submitted texts. This short article elaborates on these themes by detailing specific items of importance.
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This article examines clinical wisdom, which has emerged from a broader study about nurse managers' influence on proficient registered nurse turnover and retention. The purpose of the study was to increase understanding of proficient nurses' experience and clinical practice by giving voice to the nurses themselves, and to look for differences in their practice. This was a qualitative study based on semistructured interviews followed by analysis founded on Gadamerian hermeneutics. ⋯ Proficient practice constitutes clinical wisdom based on responsibility, thinking and ethical discernment, and a drive for action. The study showed that poor working conditions cause proficient nurses to regress to non-proficient performance. Further studies are recommended to allow deeper searching into the area of working conditions and their relationship to lack of nurse proficiency.