With the development of sophisticated technology that impacts illness trajectory, the nurses face more complex ethical decisions. In solving ethical problems, nurses need to be aware of ethical theory with they are most comfortable and their own hierarchy of principles or values in that theory.
The purpose of this study is (1) to understand relationship among ethics, bioethics, and nursing ethics, (2) to identify ethical issues in nursing profession, (3) to understand ethical dilemma and decision making in resolving ethical problems.
Ethics are the rules or principles that govern right conduct and bioethics is the ethics concerning life. The fields of ethics may be divided into "normative ethics" and "metaethics"; normative ethics is concerned with questions of right and wrong action, good and evil, or moral conducts and metaethics is concerned with the nature of ethical discourse. Basic principles in bioethics are the principle of autonomy, the principle of nonmaleficence, the principle of beneficence, and the principle of justice.
Nursing ethics as applied normative ethics is a special field within bioethics. The continuing development of disciplinary of nursing and the profession of nursing has led to an awareness that there is a field of knowledge called nursing ethics. The current literature focuses on nursing ethics is one of three ways: form the perspective of professional ethics, as a derivative of medical ethics and bioethics, or from the perspective of feminism with focus on caring.
Nursing has developed its own code of ethics that provides a means by which professional standards of practice are established, maintained, and improved. It is essential to a profession.
The changing scope of nursing practice has led to and increasing incidence of conflicts between clients’ needs and nurses’ professional values. Ethical issues in the nursing practice which was discussed in this study are categorized human life area, clinical setting area, and research.
To make ethical judgements, one must rely on rational thought, not emotion. Although code of ethics offer general guidelines for decision making, more specific guidelines are necessary in many cases to resolve the everyday dilemmas encountered by nurses in practice settings. Nurses need skills of legal and ethical analysis and decision making to empower to manage difficult clinical situation. To resolve an ethical dilemma, a nurse must establish a sound database, identify value conflicts, outline courses of action and outcomes, determine who owns the problem, and define the nurse’s obligation.
Recommendations for education, practice, and research on nursing ethics are as follows: (1)Ethical education for undergraduate nursing curricula and inservice education focused on ethical theory and practice as hospital policy need to be developed, (2)Establishment of bioethics committee in the hospital and institutional review board in health related institution is recommended, (3)Standardized tool for ethical decision making based korean culture need to be developed.
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