'The nurse should consider.' Critical care ethical issues

Abstract

A hypothetical dilemma on resuscitation of an intensive care patient was presented to nurses at a workshop on ethics of critical care nursing. Nurses responded to separate questionnaires about what a charge nurse should do, and what they themselves would do in relation to ten considerations arising from the dilemma. Nurses were agreed that legal consequences, patient wishes and rights, and physician authority should and would be considered, and that peer influence should not. Nurses were divided in their attitudes to following procedure and personal moral beliefs, and to job risk. The most contentious issues were related to the nurse's role as a decision-making member of the health care team. Implications for regarding nurses as independent decision-makers are discussed.