Confidentiality In Nursing

Confidentiality refers to the privacy of information. Confidentiality is a vital component of the nurse-patient relationship, and without it there would be little trust between the parties, leading to implications on both sides; the nurse needs to trust that the patient has disclosed all necessary information honestly, whilst the patient needs to trust the nurse in order to be able to do so (Edwards, 2009). This essay will discuss the professional duty of a student nurse with regards to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) statement “You must respect people’s right to confidentiality”. The professional, ethical, and legal aspects of confidentiality will be discussed in detail, with a focus on nursing adults.

Confidentiality in healthcare
Utilitarianism, also referred to as consequentialism, is based on the principle that the consequences of an action solely determine whether it is right or wrong, and the higher the amount of positive consequences of an action, the more right it is. Deontology on the other hand is strongly associated with duties and rights and encourages judgements on the rightness of actions based on duty of those involved irrespective of any real or predicted consequences or outcomes. Virtue ethics unlike the other two theories, does not focus on the consequences or rules but instead focuses on moral character and is based on the principle that an action is only right if it is an action that a ‘virtuous’ person would carry out in the same
For example a patient may be diagnosed with a disease that is hereditary and they have children, but do not wish their family to know their diagnosis. Toren and Wagner (2010) suggest that, by maintaining the patient’s confidentiality, the nurse would be acting in a non-maleficent way. However, upholding the patient’s confidentiality risks harm to relatives of the patient, so it could be argued that the nurse is not acting in a non-maleficent way at