title: Technology and its ethics in nursing and caring journals: An integrative literature review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Over the past 20 years, the impact of technology has increased significantly in health care. The diversity of technology is growing and its knowledge scattered. The concept of technology is ambiguous in caring and nursing sciences and its ethics remains unidentified.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To find evidence on how the concept of technology and its ethics are defined in caring and nursing sciences and practice. The purpose of this study is to describe and summarize the concept of technology and its ethics in the past nursing and caring literature.
  
  
  METHODS
  The integrative literature review of the past nursing and caring literature. The data were collected from caring and nursing journal articles from 2000 to 2013 focusing on technology and its ethics.The results were summarized and themed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Technology as a concept has three implications. First, technology is devices and products, including ICT and advanced, simple and assistive technology. Second, technology refers to a process consisting of methods for helping people. Third, technology as a service indicates the production of care by technology. The ethics of technology has not been established as a guiding principle. Some studies excluded ethical reflection completely. Many studies discussed the ethics of technology as benefits such as improved communication and symptoms management, and the simple use of e-health services whilst others remained critical presenting ethical problems such as unwillingness and the inability to use technology, or conflicts with human aspects or questions of inequality.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In conclusion, this study indicates that technology as a concept is described diversely. The relation between technology and ethics is not a truism. Despite some evidence, more is needed to promote ethical care when using technology.
authors.affiliation: Åbo Akademi University, Finland; Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Finland eila-sisko.korhonen@metropolia.fi.
authors.forename: Eila-Sisko
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Korhonen
authors.affiliation: Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
authors.forename: Tina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nordman
authors.affiliation: Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Eriksson
mesh_terms: D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000941:ethics*; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D006801:Humans; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000941:ethics*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000941:ethics*
keywords: Caring; caring science; concept; dignity; ethics; integrative literature review; nursing; suffering; technology