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Research aims: To explore and describe registered and enrolled nurses’ experiences of ethics and human rights issues in nursing practice in the Australian State of Victoria. Method: Descriptive survey of 398 Victorian nurses using the Ethical Issues Scale (EIS) survey questionnaire. Major findings: The most frequent and most disturbing ethical issues reported by the nurses surveyed included: protecting patients’ rights and human dignity, providing care with possible risk to their own health, informed consent, staffing patterns that limited patient access to nursing care, the use of physical/chemical restraints, prolonging the dying process with inappropriate measures, working with unethical/impaired colleagues, caring for patients/families who are misinformed, not considering a patient’s quality of life, poor working conditions. Conclusions: Nurses in Victoria frequently experience disturbing ethical issues in nursing practice that warrant focussed attention by health service managers, educators and policy makers.
Johnstone et al. (Mon,) studied this question.