Public health nursing ethics in Canadian undergraduate nursing curricula
Date
2012-08-08
Authors
Ferreira, Carla
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Abstract
Public health nurses (PHNs) encounter ethical issues in practice that are
different than those faced by their acute care counterparts. In the nursing
literature, PHNs reported that ethical issues often stemmed from their
relationships with clients, which could be an individual, community, or
population, and the system in which they practiced. Although nurses have
analyzed ethical situations using traditional frameworks grounded in the four
principles of bioethics, ethical issues in public health nursing tend to be more
complex and therefore require ethical frameworks that acknowledge the values
and principles held by PHNs. If ethics is a critical part of nursing practice, how is
public health nursing ethics introduced to today’s nursing students in Canada? In
this paper, I discuss the results of an online survey exploring public health nursing
ethics content in Canadian nursing curricula. Respondents from 40 schools of
nursing across Canada revealed that discussion of public health nursing ethics
within their community health nursing courses is evolving. The participants
indicated no consensus on how nursing students were introduced to and educated
about public health nursing ethics. Also, in teaching public health nursing ethics,
there was a lack of an ethical framework that reflected the values and principles of
both public health and nursing ethics. What was frequently noted by participants
was the use of a social justice focus in teaching about public health nursing and
ethics. Also, implicit in the responses was a recognition of public health nursing
practice as being highly relational, and as evident in the literature, a relational
ethics framework is a good fit for public health nursing in addressing ethical
issues in practice. The survey results can potentially pave the way for Schools of
Nursing across Canada to examine how curricula can incorporate public health
nursing ethics to support nursing students’ praxis. As well, the findings highlight
the need for continued effort in promoting research in the area of public health
nursing ethics, as one way to support PHN practice and develop an empowered
and resilient public health workforce.
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Keywords
public health nursing, community health nursing, public health, community health nursing ethics, nursing education, nursing ethics