Background: Dementia means a progressive cognitive impairment. The number of people that will get diagnosed with dementia reckons to be considerably increased in the years to come. Ethics is part of the base values and implies doing what is good, fair and right in a situation. An ethical dilemma occurs when no option of action is better than another. Aim: To study what ethical dilemmas health care workers, focusing on nurses, could encounter when caring for a person with dementia as well as identify possible causes of ethical dilemmas. Method: Ten qualitative scientific articles retrieved from the database PubMed were studied and went through a quality check. The results of the articles were analyzed and similarities, as well as differences, were compared and compiled to answer the aim of the study. Results: The results of the articles could be divided into six categories of which four categories illustrated ethical dilemmas and two categories illustrated underlying causes of ethical dilemmas. The categories that caused situations of ethical dilemmas were treatment under coercion, humiliation of patients, the staff lying and deceiving, limited autonomy and relatives’ desires and demands. The underlying causes were lack of competence and lack of resources. Conclusion: Ethical dilemmas appeared to be present to a varying extent yet always adjacent in caring for people with dementia. It appeared to be intricate to know where the line for unethical treatment lies and that there are differences in the individual distinctions. Furthermore, a need for competence development and increased resources were identified as key to reducing the risk of ethical dilemmas arising.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-476063 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Hellström, Calle, Pettersson, Johanna |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för folkhälso- och vårdvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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