The usefulness of hospital ethics committees as a coping strategy for critical care nurses to resolve ethical dilemmas

The purpose of the study was to examine critical care nurses' perceptions of the usefulness of hospital ethics committees as a coping strategy for resolving ethical dilemmas. The conceptual framework was Lazarus and Folkman's theory of stress, appraisal, and coping (1984).The convenience sample was five critical care nurses from five midwestern hospitals. Confidentiality was maintained by identifying participants as numbers.The research design for the study was an exploratory case study. The research question, nurses perceptions' of the usefulness of hospital ethics committees as a coping strategy to resolve ethical dilemmas, was analyzed using a qualitative methodology. Findings indicated that the nurses did not perceive hospital ethics committees as useful resources in ethical conflicts. Barriers to use of committees included lack of education about the committees, lack of timely intervention by committees in a crisis and risks involved in confronting physicians via committees.Conclusions were that ethics committees were not fulfilling a role as support systems empowering nurses to act as patient advocates in ethical dilemmas. Results can be used to develop strategies to increase the ethics committees' effectiveness in ethical dilemmas.School of NursingThesis (M.S.