Case Development on Nurses' Ethical Dilemmas with Physicians' and Nurses' Decision Making

Abstract

Purpose: This study was done to develop a realistic clinical case and investigate nurses’ decision-making about nurses’ ethical dilemmas with physicians in the fields of nursing practice. Methods: Case development and a hypothetical case study were used. Participants were 52 nurses. Data were collected in 2012 and 2013 using an open-ended questionnaire and interviews and analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics. Results: Various dilemma situations between nurses and physicians, such as violence, deathbed, medicationㆍprescription, and physicians’ incapacityㆍunfairness, were suggested. A clinical dilemma case about medicationㆍprescription was developed based on nurses’ experiences. Nurses’ responses to the developed case situation and responses were classified into five types. Various reasons were given for making the decisions and about 56% of the nurses decided to notify their supervisor without deleting nursing records. Conclusion: In this study, a realistic clinical dilemma case was developed, and nurses’ ethical decision making was identified. These findings can be used in developing effective strategies for nurses to solve ethical dilemmas and to improve ethical decision-making abilities.