Cargando…

Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic

Background: In modern healthcare, the role of solidarity, altruism and the natural response to moral challenges in life-threatening situations is still rather unexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of nurses’ willingness to care for patients during...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Slettmyr, Anna, Schandl, Anna, Andermo, Susanne, Arman, Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9111903/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35559725
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09697330221085768
_version_ 1784709316059594752
author Slettmyr, Anna
Schandl, Anna
Andermo, Susanne
Arman, Maria
author_facet Slettmyr, Anna
Schandl, Anna
Andermo, Susanne
Arman, Maria
author_sort Slettmyr, Anna
collection PubMed
description Background: In modern healthcare, the role of solidarity, altruism and the natural response to moral challenges in life-threatening situations is still rather unexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of nurses’ willingness to care for patients during crisis. Objective: To elucidate clinical expressions of ontological situational ethics through nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic. Research design, participants and context: A qualitative study with an interpretive design was applied. Twenty nurses who worked in intensive care unit at two Swedish hospitals during the first, second, and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed. The analysis was interpretative and applied a theoretical ethics perspective. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Findings: From a philosophical perspective, the nurses expressed sovereign life expressions of mercy and compassion, which arose spontaneously in response to seeing vulnerable fellow humans. They referenced ‘‘the nurse inside me’’ and their choice of profession as motives to provide care. Ontological situational ethics in culture and norms were noted in the constructs of competence, responsibility, solidarity with colleagues and organization; and interest and learning were driving forces. Ethical demand was evident when nurses expressed ideas of meaningfulness in helping their fellow humans; but themes of ambiguity, exhaustion and unwillingness were also present. Conclusions: The nurses showed a high willingness to care for patients during a crisis. Responding to the ethical demand and to care for vulnerable human beings while risking their own health and lives could be interpreted as an inter-human vocation. These spontaneous altruistic actions saved the lives of many patients during the pandemic and need to be understood and supported
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9111903
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher SAGE Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-91119032022-05-17 Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic Slettmyr, Anna Schandl, Anna Andermo, Susanne Arman, Maria Nurs Ethics Original Manuscripts Background: In modern healthcare, the role of solidarity, altruism and the natural response to moral challenges in life-threatening situations is still rather unexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of nurses’ willingness to care for patients during crisis. Objective: To elucidate clinical expressions of ontological situational ethics through nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic. Research design, participants and context: A qualitative study with an interpretive design was applied. Twenty nurses who worked in intensive care unit at two Swedish hospitals during the first, second, and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed. The analysis was interpretative and applied a theoretical ethics perspective. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Findings: From a philosophical perspective, the nurses expressed sovereign life expressions of mercy and compassion, which arose spontaneously in response to seeing vulnerable fellow humans. They referenced ‘‘the nurse inside me’’ and their choice of profession as motives to provide care. Ontological situational ethics in culture and norms were noted in the constructs of competence, responsibility, solidarity with colleagues and organization; and interest and learning were driving forces. Ethical demand was evident when nurses expressed ideas of meaningfulness in helping their fellow humans; but themes of ambiguity, exhaustion and unwillingness were also present. Conclusions: The nurses showed a high willingness to care for patients during a crisis. Responding to the ethical demand and to care for vulnerable human beings while risking their own health and lives could be interpreted as an inter-human vocation. These spontaneous altruistic actions saved the lives of many patients during the pandemic and need to be understood and supported SAGE Publications 2022-05-13 2022-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9111903/ /pubmed/35559725 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09697330221085768 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Manuscripts
Slettmyr, Anna
Schandl, Anna
Andermo, Susanne
Arman, Maria
Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
title Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
title_full Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
title_fullStr Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
title_short Spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
title_sort spontaneous ethics in nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic
topic Original Manuscripts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9111903/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35559725
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09697330221085768
work_keys_str_mv AT slettmyranna spontaneousethicsinnurseswillingnesstoworkduringapandemic
AT schandlanna spontaneousethicsinnurseswillingnesstoworkduringapandemic
AT andermosusanne spontaneousethicsinnurseswillingnesstoworkduringapandemic
AT armanmaria spontaneousethicsinnurseswillingnesstoworkduringapandemic