Navigating Ethical Challenges in Modern Nursing Practice- Current Issues and Solutions
Introduction
Healthcare professionals can obtain informed consent through different methods. It is, however, essential to be aware of the practical realities associated with informed consent to improve legal and ethical standards. Informed consent preserves and maintains respect for participants’ dignity and autonomy and protects research subjects from potential harm and risks (Moeini et al., 2019). There are, however, persistent debates on how informed consent should be obtained and whether it is necessary. The failure to agree on this results in ethical tension. Nurses must thus be aware of the importance of informed consent in the healthcare delivery industry. They must be committed to adhering to their Codes of Ethics, which prescribes the importance of patient autonomy in providing quality healthcare services.
Article Summary
Moeini et al. (2019) conducted a study to determine the ethical challenges healthcare professionals face when obtaining informed consent from surgical patients. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study that used a checklist and two questionnaires for collecting data. The study participants were 298. Ninety-five of them were nurses, while 203 of them were patients. The study settings were surgical wards of three university hospitals in Iran. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and a t-test.
The study researchers sought ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board. The study revealed that the mean authority, awareness, and competency scores were 67.7, 36.3, and 57.6 (Moeini et al., 2019). The overall quality of informed consent had a poor mean score of 53.9 out of 100 (Moeini et al., 2019). Patients with higher educational status were associated with less authority and lower awareness of giving informed consent. Among the nurses in the study, only 12.6% revealed that patients were given enough information to ensure they gave informed consent (Moeini et al., 2019). The risk of medical interventions was mentioned in 89.2% of informed consent forms. Still, alternative treatment benefits and risks of rejecting the intervention were not mentioned in any of the informed consent forms (Moeini et al., 2019). The study concluded that the ethical challenges associated with obtaining informed consent included the failure to provide the necessary information to patients, poor awareness of patients of their rights, and failure to consider the patients’ education levels. Additional challenges included unclear structure on which healthcare professionals should obtain informed consent from patients, use of medical jargon, ambiguous language, and time constraints (Moeini et al., 2019). The study recommended developing an ethical framework to guide nurses when dealing with ethical challenges associated with obtaining informed consent.
How Informed Consent Impacts Nursing/Healthcare
The foundation of a therapeutic and respectful relationship between a healthcare professional and the patient is informed consent. Obtaining informed consent is a legal and ethical obligation before performing surgical or nonsurgical procedures (Faison, 2018). Nurses are aware of the principles and practices of informed consent since it’s their day-to-day routine. Healthcare organizations must have informed consent procedures and policies that are compliant with federal laws, state laws, and Joint Commission Standards (Faison, 2018). Participating in the informed consent procedure is one of the daily tasks of nurses. Their roles may, however, differ.
Informed consent allows patients to take part in medical decision-making. They can choose to accept or deny care after necessary and adequate information is provided. Informed consent allows a collaborative process between healthcare professionals and patients. It will enable them to be involved in a shared decision-making process that accounts for the patient’s unique needs and preferences (Shah et al., 2020). Being informed allows patients to weigh the benefits and harms of diagnostic procedures, invasive procedures, certain medications, and surgical procedures. Informed consent guides the process of providing care to patients. Healthcare professionals should inform patients of the proposed medical intervention, benefits and risks, alternatives to the proposed intervention, benefits and risks, and patient preferences (Shah et al., 2020).
Patient safety is paramount in healthcare, and hence, an effective informed consent process is considered a significant safety issue. The Joint Commission emphasizes how informed consent should be obtained from patients. This guided the procedures and policies of healthcare organizations. Nurses must ensure that the patient’s signature is in the informed consent form (Shah et al., 2020). The informed consent p