Ethics Assignment
Introduction
Confidentiality is an ethical value that remains deeply rooted in the nursing profession and has always been the cornerstone of the nurse-patient relationship. Since the days as nursing students, we were constantly reminded of the significance in maintaining patient’s confidentiality.
The Oxford dictionary defines confidentiality as intended to be kept secret while the Cambridge dictionary defines it as the state of being secret. The Singapore Nursing Board (SNB) Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct states that confidentiality means to protect the privacy of clients’ personal information (SNB, 2014).
According to Lockwood (2005), confidentiality could be viewed as information that a doctor learns about a
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According to Beauchamp and Childress (2013), the principle of beneficence is the promotion of good and removal of harm while non-maleficence is to do no harm to others. Promoting the welfare and doing no harm to people has always been the goal of nursing. Therefore, we should inform his family so that they can take precaution, which will reduce the risk of HIV transmission. For instance, his wife can avoid unprotected sex with him if she knows about his HIV status. Also, family members can go for a HIV test and seek treatment if …show more content…
If we as nurses respect the confidentiality of a patient, we should do so for all the patients. However, Griffith (2007) argues that the duty of confidence should not be absolute and nurses should always consider sharing information if required. Though the principle of respecting patient autonomy and their right to confidentiality is broken here, the principle of beneficence and non-maleficence is uphold. Nurses have an obligation to protect patient’s confidentiality but the duty to warn an innocent party of imminent harm is far more critical. Therefore, breaking confidentiality here is potentially doing more good than