Ethical Considerations in Critical Care Nursing and Their Impact on Professional Conduct in Intensive Care Units

Making moral decisions is a crucial part of nursing practice since intensive care units (ICUs) commonly provides moral conundrums pertaining to patient autonomy, informed consent, and resource allocation. Critical care nursing requires intricate decision-making in high-pressure environments in shaping patient care and professional conduct. Despite their importance in ICUs, ethical considerations often cause moral distress and uncertainty for nurses. The absence of standardized training and institutional support leads to inconsistencies in professional conduct, affecting patient care quality and teamwork. Research involved ICU nurses from multiple hospitals, with a sample size of 150 participants selected through stratified random sampling. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis were performed, such as logistic regression models to examine the impact of ethical training on critical care decision-making and chi-square tests to investigate associations between professional behaviour and ethical awareness. The findings revealed a significant correlation between ethical awareness and professional conduct, with nurses who received formal ethical training demonstrating higher adherence to ethical principles. Ethical challenges related to appropriate care and resource allocation were the most frequently reported dilemmas. Additionally, nurses with institutional support and ethical guidelines exhibited lower levels of moral distress and improved interdisciplinary collaboration. Resolving these moral dilemmas improves decision-making, lessens moral suffering, and creates a more moral and professional intensive care unit, all of which contribute to better patient care.