RT Article
T1 Two cases of nursing older nursing home residents during COVID-19
JF Nursing ethics
VO 31
IS 2/3
SP 256
OP 267
A1 Jaarsma, Pier
A1 Gelhaus, Petra
A1 Eklund Saksberg, My
A2 Gelhaus, Petra
A2 Eklund Saksberg, My
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1892047462
AB IntroductionTwo ethical challenges of nursing home nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden are discussed in this paper.BackgroundHistorically, the nurse’s primary concern is for the person who is ill, which is the core of nurses’ moral responsibility and identity. In Sweden, person-centered care is generally deemed important in nursing older nursing home residents.ObjectiveTo chart moral responsibilities of nursing home nurses in two cases involving older residents during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden.MethodsWe used Margaret Urban Walker’s framework for moral responsibilities and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) code of ethics for nurses (2021) for our normative analysis.Ethical considerationsWritten and verbal consent was obtained before the interviews, and information was given that participation was entirely voluntary and possible to cancel at any time before the work was published. The Swedish Ethical Review Agency gave an advisory opinion stating that there were no ethical objections to this research project (Dnr. 2020-05649).FindingsCase #1: a palliative older nursing home resident who was coercively tested for COVID-19, and case #2: a COVID-19–infected resident with dementia who was isolated using sedation. The decision that was finally made in the respective case was analyzed in the light of either consequentialist/utilitarian or non-consequentialist/deontological reasons.DiscussionEmpowerment of nurses as moral agents is required for the application of practical wisdom in the balancing of different care relationships (responsibilities), moral identities (professional virtues), and competing moral values. This requires resources and opens possibilities for profound ethical reflection in nursing education and at work.ConclusionDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the moral and professional responsibility of nursing home nurses to deliver person-centered care was sometimes problematically abandoned in favor of a more utilitarian manner of ethical decision-making.
K1 palliative care < topic areas
K1 ethics and dementia care < topic areas
K1 moral distress < topic areas
K1 care of the older person < areas of practice
K1 Empowerment
K1 codes of ethics
K1 Nursing Homes
K1 medium-range narratives
K1 COVID-19 isolation
K1 Ethics of care/care ethics < theory/philosophical perspectives
DO 10.1177/09697330231185944