You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • Ethical dilemmas for palliative care nurses: systematic review

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Review
Ethical dilemmas for palliative care nurses: systematic review
  1. Shuwan Geng1,
  2. Lei Zhang2,
  3. Quan Zhang3 and
  4. Yijin Wu1
  1. 1Center for Geriatric Healhcare Services and Health Education, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, Shandong, China
  2. 2Department of Physical Examination, Rizhao People's Hospital, Rizhao, Shandong, China
  3. 3School of International Affairs and Public Administration, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, Shandong, China
  1. Correspondence to Dr Yijin Wu, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, Shandong, 250100, China; wuyijin9972{at}qfnu.edu.cn

Abstract

Background Nurses play a unique and critical role in palliative care, and it is noteworthy that nurses often encounter ethical dilemmas in this field.

Objective This review aims to conduct a summarised synthesis of the latest research on the ethical considerations nurses faced in palliative care.

Methods We conducted a rigorous systematic review of relevant existing studies published in high-quality English peer-reviewed journals from January 2017 to July 2023. We identified a total of 4492 articles (1029 in Web of Science, 1570 in PubMed and 1893 in Science Direct). Out of these, only 13 studies met the inclusion criteria.

Results Following the thematic analysis, the ethical considerations reported in these 13 studies were grouped into three main themes and four subthemes: ethical issues in communication (ethical issues in communication with patients, ethical issues in communication with families), ethical issues in decision-making (autonomy, dignity) and moral distress in palliative care.

Conclusion This study elaborated on the ethical challenges faced by nurses in their communication with patients and families as well as decision-making and analysed the causes and effects of ethical distress, hoping to give a hand to ethical issues for nurses’ work in palliative care.

  • End of life care
  • Hospice care

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

https://doi.org/10.1136/spcare-2023-004742

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors contributed substantially to the research; SG drafted the work; LZ and QZ contributed to the analysis of data; YW conceived and designed the study.

    • Funding This study was funded by Shandong Social Science Planning Fund Program(No.21CYYJ08).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.