Ethical issues and needs for ethical support of home healthcare professionals

Abstract

  Focus group interviews were conducted with home healthcare professionals (8 physicians, 13 nurses, and 11 care managers) on 1) what they value in their work in home healthcare, 2) ethical issues they have faced, 3) efforts they are making to resolve them, and 4) support they would like to receive to resolve the issues and have qualitatively analyzed. The results showed that the fundamental values are to “focus on the patient and family” and “build consensus among the persons involved”. This study also revealed that the ethical issues can be categorized into “issues related to collaboration”, “issues related to the environment and system”, “issues related to home healthcare professionals”, “issues related to the patient and family”, “issues related to the patients themselves” and “issues related to the family and home healthcare professionals”. In addition, this study suggests that the ethics support that home healthcare professionals need includes free access to consultation in daily practice, a place for multidisciplinary discussion with the participation of third parties, ethics education for professionals, and personnel with expertise in both home healthcare and clinical ethics.