Anaesthesia Care of Older Patients as Experienced by Nurse Anaesthetists

This article analyses problem situations in the context of anaesthesia care. It considers what it means for nurse anaesthetists to be in problematic situations in the anaesthesia care of older patients. Benner’s interpretive phenomenological approach proved useful for this purpose. Paradigm cases ar...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Mauleon, Annika Larsson (Author) ; Palo-Bengtsson, Liisa (Author) ; Ekman, Sirkka-Liisa (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2005
In: Nursing ethics
Year: 2005, Volume: 12, Issue: 3, Pages: 263-272
Further subjects:B older patients
B Ethics
B problematic care
B Moral Distress
B Responsibility
B paradigm case
B anaesthesia care
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:This article analyses problem situations in the context of anaesthesia care. It considers what it means for nurse anaesthetists to be in problematic situations in the anaesthesia care of older patients. Benner’s interpretive phenomenological approach proved useful for this purpose. Paradigm cases are used to aid the analysis of individual nurses’ experiences.Thirty narrated problematic anaesthesia care situations derived from seven interviews were studied. These show that experienced nurse anaesthetists perceive anaesthesia care as problematic and highly demanding when involving older patients. To be in problematic anaesthesia care situations means becoming morally distressed, which arises from the experience or from being prevented from acting according to one’s legal and moral duty of care. An important issue that emerged from this study was the need for an ethical forum to discuss and articulate moral issues, so that moral stress of the kind experienced by these nurse anaesthetists can be dealt with and hopefully reduced.
ISSN:1477-0989
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1191/0969733005ne788oa