Ethical problems in nursing management: Frequency and difficulty of the problems.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Management
• Bioethics
• Healthcare Administration

Background:

• Nurse managers (NMs) lead nursing staff, a key healthcare workforce.
• NMs are crucial for upholding organizational values and ethical standards.
• Ensuring nurses' ethical competence is a core responsibility for NMs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the frequency and difficulty of ethical problems encountered by nurse managers.
• To identify background factors associated with these ethical challenges.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional survey design was employed.
• Data were collected from 214 NMs in Finland (November 2014–May 2015).
• Ethical problems were categorized into five areas: patients, nursing staff, other professionals, the organization, and NMs themselves.

Main Results:

• Ethical problems concerning nursing staff and the organization were most frequent, occurring weekly for about half of NMs.
• Organization-related ethical problems were identified as the most difficult.
• Positive assessments of work-related background factors correlated with fewer and less difficult ethical problems.

Conclusions:

• Healthcare organizations must enhance awareness of ethical problems, especially organizational ones, to develop effective solutions.
• Strengthening ethics resources, integrating ethical considerations into decision-making, and providing ethics education are recommended.
• Support mechanisms are vital for managing complex ethical dilemmas and value conflicts.