Expert Nurses’ Coping Experiences in Ethically Challenging Situations: a Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background Nurses encounter ethically challenging situations in everyday practice. This study aimed to explore expert nurses’ experiences of coping with ethically challenging situations to understand nurses’ ethical competence.MethodsParticipants were recruited via purposive sampling. Small group interviews were conducted with 26 expert registered nurses in a general hospital in South Korea. The data were analysed using Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. ResultsThe essential theme of nurses’ experience of coping with ethically challenging situations was ‘being faithful to the nature of caring’. This essential theme comprised three themes: self-monitoring of ethical insensitivity, maintaining honesty, and actively acting as an advocate. ConclusionsThe findings of this study showed that coping strategies of expert nurses are mostly consistent with the attributes of previously defined ethical competence in healthcare, and the way for expert nurses to deal with ethically challenging situations is to care for patients faithfully according to the spirit of caring. It is ethical to be faithful to the nature of caring. System-wide early counselling and interventions should be considered for nurses who have experienced ethical difficulties. Nursing administrators also should investigate ethically challenging situations and implement measures to improve such situations, if possible.