Ethics in the intensive care unit: a need for research

Intensive care units are challenging and technologically advanced environments. Dealing with situations that have an ethical dimension is an intrinsic part of working in such a milieu. When a moral dilemma emerges, it can cause anxiety and unease for all staff involved with it. Theoretical and abstract papers reveal that having to confront situations of ethical difficulty is a contributory factor to levels of poor morale and burnout among critical care staff. Despite this, there is a surprising dearth of published nursing research in the UK that investigates how staff deal with ethical issues in intensive care units. The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the development of a research framework designed to explore how staff deal with moral dilemmas in a British intensive care unit.