The Need for more Ethics Education for Nurses (Health, Medicine, Nursing Research Paper)

The Need for more Ethics Education for Nurses
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The Need for more Ethics Education for Nurses
Nurses encounter plenty of moral dilemmas during patient care, which makes ethical knowledge important within their profession. Ethics education is significant to ensure nurses are well-prepared and competent to handle any ethical challenge. This is because on many occasions nurses have to deal with life and death situations that require prompt ethical actions. They also face ethical dilemmas due to complex daily interactions involving various stakeholders such as physicians, families, nurses, healthcare professionals, and patients. These individuals may come from culturally diverse backgrounds which increases the possibility of ethical conflicts within a clinical setting. Today, an increased demand for integrated care and modern technologies has caused fresh ethical challenges for nurses (Hoskins, Grady & Ulrich, 2018). This calls for an expanded knowledge base for nurses to cope with emerging ethical issues within their profession.
Since nurses are extensively involved in patient care across a population the need for nurses to follow the highest ethical standards is crucial. This will ensure patients and families benefit from the best healthcare. Nursing statistics since 2017 indicate an ever-growing demand for nursing professionals. With more than 3 million registered nurses, they form the largest health professional group in the United States. A significant number of nurses face difficulties handling various ethical scenarios. This trend highlights the need for extensive ethics education for nurses. (Hoskins, Grady & Ulrich, 2018). This discussion explores the importance of nursing ethics education. It then looks at literatures that will help understand the depth of research covered within the field of nursing ethics. The paper will finally do an analysis and synthesis of the literature to fully understand the knowledge gap in nursing ethics. Educating nurses in ethics is vital to ensure better patient care and positive health outcomes.
Background and Significance
The nursing practice for a long time, particularly during the 1800s, lacked a formal code of ethics. After the creation of the American Nurses Association in 1896, more focus was placed on issues related to the registration, certification and welfare of nurses. During that period ethics education for nurses was a lesser priority. However, the issue took greater significance when the ANA created a set of ethical provisions in 1926 meant to guide nurses in their profession. The code’s objective was to promote ethical responsibility in nursing practice. It was believed that if nurses upheld high moral values then they would make the right choices in clinical environments (Epstein & Turner, 2015). The nursing profession continued to modernize which led ANA in 1950 to release the first Professional ethical code for nurses.
The code has been refined over the years to reflect the changes in the society and the nursing practice. A lot of emphasis has been placed on promoting professionalism and accountability within the practice which will enhance patient care. Today, ethics is a core part of nursing. Every nurse must follow the high ethical standards set out in the modern code of ethics published in 2015 by ANA. The provisions seek to increase ethical knowledge in nurses. The document also continues to be regularly updated to conform to the latest trends in healthcare (Epstein & Turner, 2015). The constant changes highlight the need for continuous ethical training and education for nurses.
However, a significant number of nurses lack a comprehensive ethics education. Due to this they feel inadequate to tackle ethical challenges. In many instances, this situation causes them moral anguish that leaves them emotionally drained. This gap in education can be traced to the nursing curriculum which offers inadequate practical training on ethics. There is also a gap in ethics-focused research in nursing which leads to inadequate evidence-based solutions to tackle complex ethical scenarios. This results in newly graduated nurses facing difficulties in handling ethical challenges when they enter the dynamic clinical environment. Therefore, it’s urgent that the profession lays down strong ethical foundations in the curriculum. This will promote an ethical culture where nurses are regularly sensitized on the codes of conduct, healthcare policies, and best practices (Rushton & Stutzer, 2015). Although, this intervention requires significant investment, it will promote ethical practice within the nursing profession.
A comprehensive ethics education for nurses offers several benefits that highlight its significance in the profession. First, nurses regularly face healthcare dilemmas in hospitals. This ethical issues may conflict with their values or professional nursing code. So, ethical education will help them make good judgments during these high-pressure situations. Second, awareness of ethics helps nurses to respect the decisions made by patients and their families. For example, a patient may refuse blood transfusion during surgery due to their religious beliefs. Ethical education will ensure the nurse respects the patient’s decision. (Haddad & Geiger, 2019). They will seek an alternative treatment that guarantees positive health outcomes for the patient.
Third, modern nursing continues to expand and advance which makes knowledge of ethics critical in handling the present complexities in nursing. When nurses have sufficient ethical knowledge they are empowered to meet the expected societal demands in patient care. Forth, sometimes nurses may find themselves in morally confusing situations. For example, a family or physician may request the nurse to remove life support due to a patient’s vegetative state. This end of life decision may conflict with the ethical principles of the nurse making it difficult for them to execute the request. Ethical education will help a nurse make the right choice that meets the standards of clinical practice. It also ensures nurses’ work to the best interests of their patients (Milliken, 2018). Any action that poses any harm or risk to patient care is avoided.
Literature Review
Nurses suffer moral distress because of ethical struggles with other healthcare practitioners and patient’s families. It causes many nurses to feel incapable of taking the right ethical action during patient care. A study of Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) specialized in anesthesiology in the US highlights the effects of ethical knowledge on moral distress. The survey involved 145 active Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) in US. Data was collected with questionnaires which assessed moral distress levels in CRNAs. This research also performed an Ethical Assessment Skills test meant to establish the nurses’ ethical decision making capacity. This research identified a curriculum gap in nursing ethics education. Ethics was well- integrated into nursing education which makes the nurses ill prepared to handle ethical challenges. This lack of ethical education also affected CRNAs ability to cope with moral distress which compromised the quality of patient care. The study revealed lower moral distress levels in CRNAs with higher ethical skills levels (Wands, 2018). This research showed curriculum upgrades are important to boost nurses' ethical competency. A strength of this study is it showed the educational programs available for CRNAs. It shows how ethical knowledge can be improved in healthcare environments. A limitation of the study was it used only CRNAs which reduced the possibility of using random sampling. The research supported the project as it showed how better ethical knowledge reduced moral distress in a specific nursing specialty.
A research conducted by Salmela, Koskinen, and Eriksson (2017) reveals the integral role of nurse leaders in promoting ethical knowledge in their departments. The study was conducted on care staff to find out the impact of nursing leadership on creating an ethical culture. Information was got using questionnaires which looked at the role of nursing leaders in ethical education. Their responses showed that nurses viewed their supervisor or director as key in creating an ethical culture. Several participants mentioned that the nurse leaders acted as their role model which encouraged them to act ethically in their practice. This research revealed that nurse leaders are in charge of establishing and maintaining a solid foundation for ethical training in the nursing staff. Good leadership will make sure care providers are well-educated on moral issues. It guarantees that nursing staff are continuously trained and educated on caring ethics. This research highlighted that continuous learning strengthens the nurse’s resolve to follow ethical values. Due to this, patient safety is enhanced as the nursing leader creates an environment where ethical values are respected and upheld (Salmela, Koskinen, & Eriksson, 2017). As a result, nurses feel motivated to do the right thing. A strength of this study is that it gave an assessment of ethical competency in nursing leaders identifying the qualities necessary for good leadership. It also focus on core questions necessary to achieve the goal of the research which was to determine the how nursing leaders can promote ethical education. A limitation of the research was low response rate which may be attributed to the ambiguity of the questions where some of them were lengthy.
Research shows that the instruction style affects nursing ethics education. Findings from several studies reveal that nursing students encounter moral reasoning challenges. This hinders their capacity to tackle the various ethical scenarios in hospital settings. Grason (2020) attribute this situation to traditional forms of instruction like lectures which are less effective in enhancing critical thinking. This is because they are passive and theoretical methods which don’t train practical application of nursing ethics concepts. Active learning strategies have been proved to substantially boost ethical decision making ability. This includes approaches such as use of multimedia tools and simulations of real-life clinical situations (Grason, 2020). An effective method is the casebased learning (CBL) approach which encourages ...