ETHICAL DILEMMAS EXPERIENCED BY HOSPITAL AND COMMUNITY NURSES - AN ISRAELI SURVEY

The objective of this survey was to assess the extent to which nurses encounter and identify dilemma-generating situations in the fight of t he publication and circulation of the Israeli code of ethics for nurse s in 1994. The results are being used as a basis for a programme aimed at promoting nurses' decision-making skills in coping with ethical di lemmas. In this era of major advances in medicine, the nurse's role as the protector of patient rights may bring about conflicts with physic ians' orders, with institutional policies, or with patients' families. Nurses will then become confronted with ethical and moral dilemmas. A nationwide survey was carried out to identify and describe the ethica l conflicts with which nurses in Israel are confronted in the course o f their work. A third of the enumerated dilemmas were encountered by m ore than 50% of the nurses. The major determinant influencing encounte rs with dilemmas, as perceived by the participating nurses, was their work setting, namely the hospital versus the community. It was shown t hat nurses seek support mainly among their peers, they are barely fami liar with the Israeli Code, and they consider their own families as th e predominant factor in shaping their ethical attitudes.