The ICN Code
According to the ICN, a nurse’s
primary responsibility is to patients, and she should treat them with
respect for their rights, values, customs and beliefs. Personal
information she learns about them should remain confidential. In addition,
she should continue her learning because she is personally responsible and
accountable for good nursing practice and she should take care of her own health so it doesn’t interfere with
her ability to care for others. She should co-operate with her co-workers
but, if a patient’s health or safety is threatened by others, she must
take action to protect them.
The ANA Code
Like the ICN, the American
Nurses Association believes that a nurse’s first commitment is to her
patient, and she should have compassion and respect for every individual
no matter who they are, what kind of health problems they have, or what
social and economic background they come from. A nurse also has a duty to
establish, maintain, and improve health care environments and conditions of employment so that high quality
health care can be provided. She should work to improve health
care locally, nationally, and internationally, and she should also work
through her professional associations to influence social policy
concerning health care. Finally, she has a duty to maintain her own
competence and to grow personally and professionally.
Types of Ethical Issues
Registered nurses responding to
a 2006 survey reported 21 different ethical issues they faced while caring
for their patients. These issues included the use of restraints, pain
management, determining best interest of the patient, organ
donation, life-sustaining treatment and end of life care, reporting
errors, dealing with impaired nurses, conflicts of interest, justice for
people with disabilities, the ethics of research and the use of
information technology and confidentiality.
Nurse Dissatisfaction
In a study investigating the
relationship between ethics and the intent of nurses and social workers to
leave their profession, researcher Connie Ulrich, Ph.D., RN discovered
that 25 percent of practicing nurses and social workers wanted to leave
the field. More than 52 percent of those who responded said they were
frustrated with the ethical issues they faced. Hospital workers reported
more ethical stress than caregivers
who worked in other settings. Nearly 40 percent of hospital workers
reported they had no organizational resources to help them with their
ethical concerns, while another 25 percent said they had never received
any ethical training.