Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 7, 2026
Monitoring Lung Function with Electrical Impedance Tomography in the Intensive Care Unit
Published on: September 6, 2024
Justice-Oriented Critical Care in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Nursing Analysis of Barriers, Needs, and
Daniel Joseph E Berdida1, Rizal Angelo N Grande2
1Department of Nursing, North Private College of Nursing, Arar, Northern Border, Saudi Arabia.
Insights
Strengthening justice in pediatric intensive care (PICU) means recognizing the moral, social, and structural factors affecting patient and family experiences. Future critical care nursing must embrace relational justice, honoring lived realities beyond resource allocation.
Area of Science:
- Bioethics
- Critical Care Nursing
- Pediatric Healthcare
Background:
- The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a high-acuity environment with significant ethical challenges.
- Children face life-threatening illnesses, while families experience fear, uncertainty, and power imbalances.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze how justice can be enhanced in PICU practice.
- To identify barriers to equitable care and outline needs for a morally robust approach.
Main Methods:
- Philosophical perspectives: distributive justice, relational ethics, phenomenology, critical theory.
- Analysis of justice within the moral, social, and structural conditions of the PICU.
Main Results:
- Justice in the PICU extends beyond resource allocation to include moral recognition, voice, respect, and compassion.
- Barriers to equitable care were identified, alongside unmet needs.
Conclusions:
- The future of critical care nursing necessitates a shift from rule-based to embodied and relational justice.
- Honoring the lived realities of patients, families, and healthcare teams is crucial for morally robust PICU care.
Abstract:
Justice-oriented critical care in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) requires nurses and the ICU team to recognize that suffering, vulnerability, and healing unfold within moral, social, and structural conditions. The PICU is one of the most ethically charged sites in healthcare, where children confront life-threatening illness, and families confront fear, uncertainty, and power imbalances. This paper uses philosophical perspectives from distributive justice, relational ethics, phenomenology, and critical theory to analyze how justice can be strengthened in PICU practice. It identifies the main barriers that prevent equitable care, outlines the needs that must be addressed, and highlights opportunities to create a morally robust and socially accountable approach. Justice in the PICU cannot be reduced to fair allocation of resources or equal treatment. It must consider how children and families experience moral recognition, voice, respect, and compassion within a high acuity environment. This paper argues that the future of critical care nursing requires moving beyond rule-based frameworks toward an embodied and relational understanding of justice that honors the lived realities of patients, families, nurses, and the healthcare team.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
01:21Planning Nursing Care I
01:29Planning Nursing Care II
01:21Interdisciplinary Care: The Health Care Team-I
Physicians
The physician's primary responsibility is to diagnose illness and direct the medical or surgical treatment of the condition. The authority to admit patients to a healthcare agency or institution and practice care within that setting is granted to physicians by the healthcare agency or institution...
01:18Interdisciplinary Care: The Health Care Team-II
Physical Therapist
A physical therapist (PT) aims to restore function or prevent additional impairment in a patient following an injury or disease. Massage, heat, cold, water, sonar waves, exercises, and electrical stimulation are some treatments used by PTs to treat...
01:25Peptic Ulcer Disease V: Surgical Management and Nursing Care
Surgical Interventions for Peptic Ulcer Disease
01:25Continuing Care