Health Behavior: Ethics and Compliance

There is an increasingly compelling need to address people’s ability and willingness to behave in ways consistent with optimum health. Still, ethical uncertainty and values conflicts arise for clinicians working with patients who behave in ways that damage their health. This presentation will review those issues with emphasis on the relational aspects including the ethical use of influence, discontinuity of risk perception, and the effect of clinician perception of patient’s responsibility for pathology. The issues will be reviewed in reference to an obese patient being cared for at home by his wife with nursing support. The patient requires but refuses assistance turning in bed to prevent bedsores – which when ignored result in severe and potentially fatal complications.
Douglas Olsen, PhD, RN
Associate Professor of Nursing at Michigan State University
Recorded November 7, 2012