Search

The aim of this study was to describe specialist ambulance nurse students’ experiences of ethical conflicts and dilemmas in prehospital emergency care. In the autumn of 2015, after participating in a mandatory lecture on ethics, 24 specialist ambulance nurse (SAN) students reported experiences and interpretations concerning conflicts and ethical dilemmas from prehospital emergency care. The text consisted of 24 written critical incidents which were interpreted using hermeneutic text interpretation. The text revealed three themes: Not safeguarding a patient’s body and identity; Not agreeing on the care actions; and Not treating the patient with dignity. The SANs experiences ethical dilemmas and conflict of values when they witness how others violate a patient’s dignity. Discussion and reflection is based on ethical conflicts and dilemmas experienced when students see how caregivers do not safeguard the patient’s body or identity. When caregivers have a conflicting will, it results in patients not being treated in an ethical manner. Also, seeing how caregivers put themselves in a power position over patients is described as an ethical dilemma that students experience when they choose not to intervene.

Dignity is a core concept in nursing care. This study highlights dignity as an important ethical concern in psychiatric inpatient settings since both caregivers and patients must struggle with being in situations where their dignity can be violated. Our findings show that caregivers violate nurses’ dignity by violating acts and patients’ actions violate nurses’ dignity. The new understanding shows that nurses in psychiatric inpatient settings are highly exposed to patient’s outward behavior. Unfortunately, other caregivers violate nurses’ dignity, as patients are dependent which makes their existence uncertain. Findings are interpreted and discussed in the light of caring theory of human dignity.

Dignity is a core concept in nursing care. In earlier theories on dignity, close links have been drawn between dignity and autonomy, and autonomy has been closely related to independence. These traditional understandings of dignity and autonomy may be challenged when an individual moves into a nursing home. Our findings show that negative views about dependence, institutional frames and structures in the nursing home, and the attitudes and actions of healthcare personnel may diminish independence and lead to a lack of autonomy. Each of these areas can be experienced as a serious threat to the residents’ dignity. Findings are interpreted and discussed in the light of a theory of relational autonomy, which represents an alternative to the traditional individualistic understanding of dignity and autonomy.

This qualitative study focused on dignity in nursing homes from the perspective of family caregivers. Dignity is a complex concept and central to nursing. Dignity in nursing homes is a challenge, according to research. Family caregivers are frequently involved in their family members’ daily experiences at the nursing home. Twenty-eight family caregivers were included in this Scandinavian cross-country, descriptive, and explorative study. A phenomenological-hermeneutic approach was used to understand the meaning of the narrated text. The interpretations revealed two main themes: “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself” and “Uneasiness due to indignity.” Dignity was maintained in experiences of respect, confidence, security, and charity. Uneasiness occurred when indignity arose. Although family caregivers may be taciturn, their voices are important in nursing homes. Further investigation of family caregivers’ experiences in the context of nursing homes is warranted. This qualitative study focused on dignity in nursing homes from the perspective of family caregivers. Dignity is a complex concept and central to nursing. Dignity in nursing homes is a challenge, according to research. Family caregivers are frequently involved in their family members’ daily experiences at the nursing home. Twenty-eight family caregivers were included in this Scandinavian cross-country, descriptive, and explorative study. A phenomenological-hermeneutic approach was used to understand the meaning of the narrated text. The interpretations revealed two main themes: “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself” and “Uneasiness due to indignity.” Dignity was maintained in experiences of respect, confidence, security, and charity. Uneasiness occurred when indignity arose. Although family caregivers may be taciturn, their voices are important in nursing homes. Further investigation of family caregivers’ experiences in the context of nursing homes is warranted. [Res Gerontol Nurs. 2014; 7(6):265–272.]

This study describes different perspectives of dignity in the care of residents experienced by family caregivers. Both patients and family caregivers express existential concerns about dignity in care, but differences between these experiences are out of phase with each other. Individual interviews with 28 family caregivers were conducted between January and February 2010. Data were analyzed using the philosophical hermeneutic method; reflection, preunderstanding, interpretation, and new understanding played an important role in the ongoing process of analysis. The findings describe the family caregivers’ experiences in daily life to receive dignifying care for their relatives and also how struggling with their own vulnerability opens up the existential dimension of dignity.

Background: When patients need emergency or planned care at a surgical ward, they expect to be treated with dignity. Studies show that there is unnecessary suffering in care. Aim: The aim was to describe how nurses experience preserved dignity versus violated dignity in surgical practice. Method: The study had a hermeneutic design where Flanagan's critical incident technique was used for data collection. Data included 49 written stories about preserved and humiliated dignity and was analyzed using hermeneutic text interpretation.Findings: Human dignity emerges when nurses listen to patients. On the other hand, human dignity is violated when nurses are forced to see what they do not want to see. These are two aspects of dignity, and prerequisites for human dignity to be preserved within care. When a nurse allows the patients to tell their stories, and when nurses want to come close to the patients and are willing to accept the patients' trust, dignity is preserved. When nurses are rude to patients and make the patients invisible, and when nurses see the patients become humiliated at the end-stage of life, dignity may be violated. Conclusion: Dignity may emerge when the will and courage to be there for someone else is allowed to permeate the caring acts.

This study described who the older patient undergoing surgery is as part of the perioperative dialogue and in order to understand their needs. The study used a hermeneutical design. Data were 54 transcribed stories from perioperative dialogues. The findings show that older patients undergoing surgery were persons: (a) with memories of the life they had lived, (b) whose body had betrayed them, (c) who were worried and afraid before the operation, and (d) who will need help from family and friends. The older patient is a unique human being, a wholeness with a past of their own and a life they have lived: the present – a time of change and the future – a time for recovery.

In our western culture we have both a private and invisibly relation to the body and at the same time a body fixation look for the complete body image. Many philosophers have reflected upon the human body and the relation between body and soul. The present study is a qualitative description of the lived body in everyday life. The point of departure is the idea that nurse students' experience of their own body influences their nursing praxis. The aim of the study was to describe how nurse students experience their lived body in different life situation.A phenomenological approach was used to provide a deeper understanding of the lived body, and a method that aims at describing a phenomenon's essence was applied in the analysis. Data were collected from twelve nurse students in the age between 20 and 44 years. All of them wrote narratives that describe the body in different life situations. The essence of the lived body as nurse students experience it is described as a expressive body, which tries to attain dignity. The essence is further understood through four constituents; the body's language, the body's power, the body's fear and the body's powerlessness. The conclusion of this phenomenological study is that nurse students have vivid experiences of their body and that the body to them is more than a physical thing.