Department of Nursing, The Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine (SAHZU), Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Changxing Branch Hospital of SAHZU, Huzhou, China.
Nurs Crit Care. 2024 Sep;29(5):1040-1049. doi: 10.1111/nicc.13042. Epub 2024 Feb 16.
Ethical conflict is embedded in healthcare and is common in critical care setting. However, there is a paucity of research on the nature of ethical conflict in China. Ethical conflict has cultural and context sensitivity. Therefore, evidence is needed from different backgrounds to help discuss this issue across borders.
This study aimed to qualitatively identify the experience of ethical conflict in critical care professionals in China.
From December 2021 to February 2022, we performed semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 21 critical care professionals from five intensive care units in a tertiary general hospital in China. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the data.
Five themes and 14 sub-themes emerged from the data. Critical care professionals probably felt unable to navigate uncertainty, torn by family issues, outraged by unprofessional behaviours of medical staff, being trapped in a socioeconomic dilemma when having experience of ethical conflict. In addition, they also perceived that they could turn struggle into growth.
The experience of ethical conflict in critical care professionals involved a mixture of feelings. This study builds a comprehensive understanding of how ethical conflict affected their perceptions of themselves and their profession and provides implications to develop effective coping strategies.
The identification of critical care professionals' experience of ethical conflict would help identify what might trigger the ethical issues and what would be the potential target to optimize in critical practice.
伦理冲突存在于医疗保健中，在重症监护环境中很常见。然而，关于中国伦理冲突本质的研究很少。伦理冲突具有文化和背景敏感性。因此，需要来自不同背景的证据来帮助跨国界讨论这个问题。
本研究旨在定性识别中国重症监护专业人员的伦理冲突体验。
从 2021 年 12 月至 2022 年 2 月，我们对来自中国一家三级综合医院的五家重症监护病房的 21 名重症监护专业人员进行了半结构化的面对面访谈。采用主题分析方法对数据进行分析。
数据中出现了五个主题和 14 个子主题。重症监护专业人员可能感到无法应对不确定性、被家庭问题所困扰、对医务人员不专业的行为感到愤怒、在经历伦理冲突时陷入社会经济困境。此外，他们还认为自己可以将斗争转化为成长。
重症监护专业人员的伦理冲突体验涉及多种感受。本研究全面了解了伦理冲突如何影响他们对自己和职业的看法，并为制定有效的应对策略提供了启示。
识别重症监护专业人员的伦理冲突体验将有助于确定可能引发伦理问题的因素，以及在重症护理实践中可能需要优化的潜在目标。
