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1. Autonomy
Autonomy in nursing is recognizing each individual patient’s right to self-determination and decision-making. As patient advocates, it is imperative that nurses ensure that patients receive all medical information, education, and options in order to choose the option that is best for them. This includes all potential risks, benefits, and complications to make well-informed decisions.
Once the patient has all the relevant information, the medical and nursing team can make a plan of care in compliance with the medical wishes of the patient.
It is important that nurses support the patient in their medical wishes and ensure that the medical team is remembering those wishes. Sometimes, nurses will need to continue to advocate for a patient despite the wishes being verbalized because the medical team might not agree with those wishes.
Many factors may influence a patient’s acceptance or refusal of medical treatment, such as culture, age, gender, sexual orientation, general health, and social support system.
2. Beneficence
Beneficence in nursing is acting for the good and welfare of others and including such attributes as kindness and charity. The American Nurses Association defines this as “actions guided by compassion.”
3. Justice
Justice is that there should be an element of fairness in all medical and nursing decisions and care. Nurses must care for all patients with the same level of fairness despite the individual’s financial abilities, race, religion, gender, and/or sexual orientation.
An example of this is when working at a free flu clinic or diabetes screening clinic. These are open to all individuals in the community regardless of the previously mentioned factors.
4. Nonmaleficence
Nonmaleficence is to do no harm. This is the most well-known of the main principles of nursing ethics. More specifically, it is selecting interventions and care that will cause the least amount of harm to achieve a beneficial outcome
The principle of nonmaleficence ensures the safety of the patient and community in all care delivery. Nurses are also responsible for reporting treatment options that are causing significant harm to a patient, which may include suicidal or homicidal ideations.