A research on ethical problems experienced by nurses of intensive care units in Adana sample

Frequency of ethical problems and the health professionals? opinion on them are important topics of clinical ethics. This thesis is based on a research in Adana sample on ethical problems experienced by nurses of intensive care units. The aim of this descriptive study is to find the frequency of this experiences and their sequence of importance according to nurses. The research carried out in the intensive care units of three main hospitals of Adana city by a questionnaire contains 22 questions in three sections.Three quarters of participants have license degree in nursing and two-thirds of them are working in internal intensive care units. The most frequent problem is transfer of the stable patient to the service to find bed for the critical patient (%97). The other frequent problems are, transfer of doctors? duty to the nurses (%88); giving more duties to the person on the lower steps of the career hierarchy (%87), refusal of treatment by the patients or their relatives (%85), request of discharge from hospital of the patient who has vital risks (%80). The less frequent ones are, to make a choice between the patients who need mechanical ventilation (%42), to cut off mechanical ventilation support (%32) and euthanasia request of the patients or their relatives (%17). The top five of sequence of importance list are, transfer of stable patient to the service (8,40), to propose organ donation to brain death patient?s relatives (7,69), the diagnosis of brain death (7,50), to give more duties to the person on the lower steps of the career hierarchy (6,80) and to transfer doctors? duty to the nurses (6,79). Discrimination between patients (5,63), euthanasia request (5,48), difference of opinion of doctors (5,20) are the last three of this list.The most frequent and important problems of intensive care units are not exactly conflict of values. Lacks of resource of the units, negative conditions, miscommunications are the main causes of them.Key Words: Intensive care, Medical ethics, Nursing ethics