An ethnographic study of human dignity in nursing practice
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The ethical values of nursing are crucial to the provision of humane care. Human dignity is a core value that must be preserved in order to deliver such care. No studies to date have compared the perceptions of nurses and/or patients regarding the components of dignified care embedded in actual clinical practice.
PURPOSE: To explore the delivery of dignified care by professional nurses. This was an ethnographic qualitative study combining inductive and deductive methods to identify emergent themes. A multicenter study carried out in the internal medicine units of four hospitals in Barcelona (Spain). Convenience sampling was used to recruit nurses from the four units.
SETTING AND SAMPLE: Multicenter study carried out in the internal medicine units of four hospitals in Barcelona (Spain). Convenience sampling was used to recruit nurses from the four units.
METHOD: We conducted 158 hours of participant observation of 27 nurses. Semi-structured individual interviews were undertaken with 20 of these nurses, with data saturation being reached. Data were collected between September 2014 and May 2016 and were analysed using ATLAS.ti 7.2 for Windows.
RESULTS: Two themes emerged from the analysis: Delivering dignified care and Factors influencing the delivery of dignified care. The nurses regarded human dignity as one of the key values of their profession. However, there was a discrepancy between their perceptions of the care they offered and what they actually did, due…
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