Map of ethics conflicts in chronic patient's hospitalization

Abstract

The identification, priorization and anticipation of the ethics conflicts, allow the Healthcare Ethics Committees (HEC) a better approach to them, as well as the adoption of measures to prevent its appearance and/or its mitigation. For this purpose, we set ourselves the objective of knowing what they are in the present, how important they are, and what would be the future scenario to face. An qualitative structure research was made whit two focal groups whit the participation of nurses, nurse auxiliary and doctors from the hospitalization area, they also answer a future ethics conflicts Decalogue. The results were tested after by their importance level (Relevance-Frequency-Consistency). The medium age of the participants was 34,7 +- 15,4, whit a medium experience at work of 11,7 +- 15,4 years. A total of 40 ethics conflicts was identify grouped in 5 risk areas: professional, assistance, social, organizational and legal. From there 21 results the more important, between them we find patient abandonment, inexistence of internal performance protocols, patient and relatives false expectations waiting for non-assistance care, unnecessary care at the end of the life, lack of rules for family / caregivers, and ignorance of legality. The more important ethical dilemmas for the future identified by the personal will be patients in abandonment, the lack of sociohealth resources, conflicts with family / caregivers situation and lack of information for decision making at the end of the life. The ethical conflicts between the personal from a chronic patients hospital and the relatives/caregivers was identifying, the most important were prioritized, and futures were anticipated. In these scenarios, we highlight abandonment as the most important. A map of ethics conflicts is a good tool to identify risk areas for ethics conflicts, we see the difference between the ethics conflicts found in other kind of hospitals. The map of ethics conflicts need to be update periodically to keep the validity.