Ethical conflicts among nurses in intensive care units
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14528/snr.2020.54.4.3021Keywords:
work overload, dissatisfaction, burnout, moral pressure, moral distressAbstract
Introduction: Ethical conflict is a serious professional problem. Nurses are becoming increasingly overwhelmed in their workplace, especially in intensive care units where work with patients with lifethreatening conditions is more complicated, and the incidence of ethical conflict is greater. The purpose of this work was to determine the level of exposure to ethical conflicts among nurses in intensive care units.
Methods: We conducted a quantitative cross-sectional study. 97 nurses working in intensive care units were included in the survey. Data were collected with a questionnaire and analyzed with univariate statistics.
Results: The study has found that nurses in intensive care units are moderately exposed to ethical conflicts (x = 138.85, s = 89.08). Most often, nurses experience ethical conflicts when there is a lack of resources that would allow the healthcare team to consider the ethical guidelines to operate (x =14.11, s = 9.13). They are the least exposed to ethical conflicts when they must administer medicines in clinical trials without having received the necessary information that they consider to be necessary for the task (x = 2.25, s = 3.70).
Discussion and conclusion: Regarding the incidence of ethical conflicts in nurses, we have found that nurses experience conflicts that are slightly problematic and quite problematic. The greatest ethical conflicts arise from the lack of time to consider ethical guidelines, indicating that there is not enough nurses to ensure quality care of patients.
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