title: Patient dignity in psychiatric nursing practice.
abstract: Professional nurses have an ethical responsibility to protect and preserve the patients' dignity. The aim of this study was to describe how nurses experienced incidents relating to patients' dignity in a psychiatric nursing practice. A hermeneutic approach was used and data were collected using the critical incident technique. Data included 77 written critical incidents, which were interpreted by using a hermeneutic text interpretation. The findings show preserved dignity--caregivers have the courage to be present, and offended dignity - caregivers create powerlessness taken away by the patient. These findings show that patients' dignity in a psychiatric nursing practice can be preserved when caregivers act on their ethical responsibility. When patients' dignity is offended, the caregiver has become an inner value conflict, something they have been a part of against their own will.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Karlstad University, Sweden. lillemor.lindwall@kau.se
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lindwall
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Boussaid
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kulzer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wigerblad
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D028701:Patient Rights / Q000941:ethics; D028723:Personhood; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000941:ethics; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis