Ethical Issues on Perioperative Nursing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to improve the quality of perioperative nursing by identifying ethical issues that operating room nurses face during the course of their daily nursing practice. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with thirteen operating room nurses. The analysis of the data showed forty-four cases that included ethical issues. As a result of grouping the forty-four cases according to similarities, thirteen situations were extracted. All thirteen situations contained four kinds of problems that relate to the ethics principle: (1) whether the nurses respected the patients' dignity (AUTONOMY,BENEFICENCE); (2) whether the nurses protected patients' privacy (FIDELITY); (3) whether the nurses provided patients with sufficient information (VERACITY) ; (4) whether the nurses gave the most appropriate care to the patients (BENEFICENCE). These four situations were classified into three ethical issues. One of the three ethical issues arose when the nurses found their value system was different from the policy of the surgical department. The other two ethical issues involve conflicts between their value systems and those of other health care professionals, and those of their patients. The nurses were in constant distress over these conflicts. The study also indicated that the nurses were anguished, as they had not been able to execute the ethical concepts of "ADVOCACY," "CARING," and "ACCOUNT-ABILITY" into their nursing practice.