Ethical dilemmas of professional nurses in an emergency department in community hospitals, Songkhla Province

Abstract

This descriptive research aimed to study ethical dilemmas of professional nurses in an emergency department in community hospitals, Songkhla Province. The sample consisted of 25 nurses who had at least 3 years of nursing experience and had been working in emergency department at least one year from 16 community hospitals, Songkhla Province. In-depth interview was used in data collecting and the critical incidents technique was done in data analysis. The results revealed that nine encountered ethical dilemmas are as follows. (1) Prolonging life or unprolonging life (32%); (2) compliance or uncompliance with medical treatment (16%); (3) protecting patients’ rights (14%); (4) patient benefits or hospital benefits (10%); (5) right decision making or loss of colleague relationship (8%); (6) truth telling (8%); (7) referring or unreferring patient (8%); (8)  telling the truth or untelling psychological harmful fact (4%) and (9) patient advocacy (4%).