Ethical Issues In Psychiatric Nursing

To my future colleagues,
Psychiatric nursing is a challenging career laden with ethical, moral, and judicial dilemmas. In this letter I hope to equip you with tools to adequately face these inevitable challenges. I will particularly focus on the consideration of ethical principles, as I believe they are critical to maintaining your integrity as nurses. This letter will discuss the application of ethical principles in reference to three morally distressing situations outlined in the research Mental Health Practitioners Experiences of Moral Distress. One, as psychiatric nurses you will go home at the end of a shift knowing you are leaving patients alone, sick, dying, or severely troubled. Two, you may sometimes have a patient load that is too
In the third edition of Concepts and Cases for Psychiatric Nursing, integrity is defined by four components; “moral autonomy; fidelity to promise; steadfastness; and wholeness” (p.350). Always respect your personal morals and values. It is all too common that we follow the rules, beliefs, and values of societal institutions without reflecting on how or whether they align with our own. As nurses you are “expected to make and should carefully reflect on three important promises: to respect patient values and choices, to protect private information and confidences, and to help and not harm patients” (Yeo, et. al, p.351). Simultaneously, it is important to keep the promises you have made to yourself about the person you believe yourself to be. Steadfastness, comparable to fidelity to promise, requires you hold true to your morals and values when circumstance may pull you in the opposite direction. Lastly, the aspiration to be a whole and virtuous person will always lead you in the right direction. Neither wholeness nor virtuosity are wholly attainable, but ‘when you shoot for the moon, you land among the stars’. Integrity, a composition of these four constituent components, is vital to professional nursing