In the course of health promotion, health practitioners may be faced by ethical issues, or dilemmas, that may compromise their aim to promote health among their clients. As a result of the nature of the health environment and practice, such situations are inevitable and hence requires effective decision making. In my case, an ethical situation I faced when teaching health promotion strategies is that of confidentiality. The patient, an adolescent, had contracted a sexually transmitted illness but was afraid to inform her parents, who would be disappointed in her. The concept of patient-nurse confidentiality was a challenge to implement as going against the patient’s wishes would be against the Code of Ethics.
According to Edelman, Mandle, and Kudzma (2014), situations involving adolescents often impose a challenge to practitioners as they are torn between adhering to the patient’s wishes and mediating such individuals with their parental and peer figures, who may feel they have authority over the adolescent. In such cases, Edelman et al (2014) propose an approach that involves maintenance and facilitation of the adolescent’s autonomy and striking the right balance with parental figures over their right to have information pertaining to their child.
In order to advance health promotion strategies in this situation, I clarified my personal values to ensure the decision I would make would not be influenced by my values and beliefs. In this case, I evaluated the situation and understood where the patient was coming from. Furthermore, I sought to identify whether there were any information gaps in the situation. I discussed with the patient on the importance of informing her parents in regards to providing the authorization required to begin her treatment. Luckily, she understood the situation and provided the go-ahead required to discuss her condition with her parents.
Reference
Edelman, C., Mandle, C. L., & Kudzma, E. C. (2014). Health promotion throughout the life span(8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
