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22: Caring About–Caring For: Moral Obligations and Work Responsibilities in Intensive Care Nursing

DOI:

10.1891/9780826171122.0022

Authors

  • Cronqvist, Agneta
  • Theorell, Töres
  • Burns, Tom
  • Lützén, Kim

Abstract

This chapter analyzes experiences of moral concern in intensive care nursing from the perspective of relational ethics. One such area is the intensive care unit (ICU) characterized by advanced technology, a high working tempo, and crucial end-of-life decisions for critically ill patients. These aspects of nursing raise ethical questions, particularly which situations concern nurses and what type of moral knowledge is needed to deal with ethical questions. It is well known that caring for critically ill patients in intensive care means encountering situations with an ethical constituent. Caring for is a task-orientated nursing care that is assigned and controlled by “others” and can be considered a moral obligation to fulfill work responsibilities. Wolf framed the rationale for the study in caregivers’ search for quality health care practices and the trend of developing criteria, standards, and protocols to achieve quality outcomes.