Human dignity and nurse

The aim of the thesis is to find out the conception of human dignity at medical staff. At nurses, in addition, with a hidden observation to verify to what extent they meet their statements in practice, whether for nurses a patient does not become only an object of relevant therapeutic and nursing acts. The empirical part of this thesis was processed in form of a qualitative research. The data collection technique was a non-standardised interview with nurses at standard in-patient departments, students of the nursery Master study programme, students of a higher nursing school and patients at a standard department. At nurses it was verified, using the technique of hidden observation, to what extent their actual behaviour in practice corresponds to the information mentioned in interviews. Therefore in their interviews we differentiated the mentioned and non-mentioned elements. The interviews were anonymous. They were recorded in writing because only in one case the respondent agreed for us to use a dictaphone. Collection of empirical data proceeded from June to August 2008. Unlike our expectations the research showed that respondents have no conception of human honour and have no complex conception of its keeping in practice. We categorised the rather poor information into five basic categories that covered 92% (intimacy, communication, individuality, empathy and equality of approach). Statements that we did not manage to categorise here create other 5 categories (worthy dying, consider seriously, pain calming, lege artis process and faith). Most often the respondents mentioned the following categories: intimacy (80.4 %), communication (76.8 %), individuality (60.7 %), empathy (39.3 %) and equality of approach (33.9 %). The hidden observation showed that most nurses (13 out of 16, i.e. 81 %) adhered to their fundamentals of keeping human dignity when working with ill people in a satisfactory way. The other 3 nurses made mistakes in all categories except keeping intimacy; here only one of them did wrong. Results of the thesis should contribute to improvement of quality of care and help to better respect for human dignity