NURSING

Moral and Ethical Issue Relating to a Patient with Suicidal Ideas in Nursing

Moral and Ethical Issue Relating to a Patient with Suicidal Ideas in Nursing

Introduction

Nurses provide care for patients with a number of problems; patients who get into the system of health care are mostly in great suffering and demonstrate several responses of maladaptive coping (Boyd, 2001, p.112). Nurses who offer their services in the settings like trauma centre, areas of critical care, emergency rooms regularly care for patients who act in response to events with aggressive and violent behaviour that can bring about a considerable risk to other patients including themselves and also the health care providers (Boyd, 2001, p.113). Hence, managing and preventing behaviour are significant abilities for all nurses to hold. One of the ways to control this kind of behaviour is giving Intramuscular Injection or IM to such patients; however the question whether it is moral and ethical to give Intramuscular Injection in these circumstances is a serious matter of debate in the field of healthcare. Here we have a case of a twenty year old lady exhibiting a number of psychotic features. She is a very disturbed individual and is unaware of the danger to herself and others. She refuses to take her prescribed medication and most of the times run up and down the length of the ward or corridor. She sometimes pushes the boundaries and also pushes past the staff and other patients in order to get what she wants. She is very unstable mentally and her behaviour escalates a lot. She often refuses her prescribed medication is therefore, PRN medication is used when required to de-escalate the situation, behavioural problem or agitation in order to reduce anxiety, stress or agitation. Now, in this situation would it be moral and ethical to give Intramuscular Injection to this lady for controlling her agitation and aggressive behaviour? Thus, in this paper we will try to find out the answer to this question.

Discussion

The safety of the patient, nurses, clinician, and other patients is of most significance while taking care of the aggressive patients (Keltner, Schwecke & Bostrom, 1999, p.89). Hence it is important that the nurses while looking after impulsively violent or aggressive patients in any setting should look out to trim down ease of access to patients of objects that are moveable in addition to jewellery and other garments that can add to the hazard of injury at some point in a physical attack, including necklaces, neckties, eyeglasses, earrings, pens and lamps (Keltner, Schwecke & Bostrom, 1999, p.89). Sufficient training and the availability of proper administration are significant protections in the handling of potentially risky patients.

This twenty year old lady is showing the signs of agitation which is defined as extreme verbal and/or motor behaviour. It can eagerly shoot up to violence, which can be either physical (toward people or objects) or verbal (nasty threats and cursing) (Keltner, Schwecke & Bostrom, 1999, p.90). Theoretically, violence is described as physical assault against other ...