IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jocnur/v22y2013i9-10p1434-1441.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intentions of nurses and nursing students to tell the whole truth to patients and family members

Author

Listed:
  • Nili Tabak
  • Michal Itzhaki
  • Dganit Sharon
  • Sivia Barnoy

Abstract

Aims and objectives To investigate the intentions of nurses and nursing students to telling the truth to patients and families, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior which examines intention to perform behaviours. Background In recent decades, the perception that patients have a moral and legal right to truthful and reliable information has become dominant. However, the study of telling the truth to non‐oncology patients has received scant attention and little is known about the intention of nurses and nursing students to tell the truth. Design A cross‐sectional design. Methods We used a scenario‐based questionnaire, illustrating eight different situations in which nurses/nursing students are asked to tell the truth to a patient or family member regarding a devastating disease with which the patient is afflicted. Data were analysed using the Mann–Whitney U‐test and ridge regression. Results The sample included 150 participants, 110 registered nurses and 40 third year nursing students, with a response rate of 87%. The results show that nurses and nursing students intend to tell the whole truth even if this is not easy for them. Nurses more than students think that it is important to tell the whole truth and intend to do so. Head nurses tend to tell the truth more than staff nurses. For nurses, the components of the Theory of Planned Behaviour predicted intention to tell the truth, whereas among students subjective norms were the only predictor of intention. Conclusion The Theory of Planned Behaviour is a powerful predictor of nurse intention to tell the whole truth to patients and their families. Students perceive social pressure as the most important incentive of their intention to tell the truth. Relevance to clinical practice Nurses and nursing students should receive additional training in dealing with various situations involving truth telling.

Suggested Citation

  • Nili Tabak & Michal Itzhaki & Dganit Sharon & Sivia Barnoy, 2013. "Intentions of nurses and nursing students to tell the whole truth to patients and family members," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(9-10), pages 1434-1441, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:22:y:2013:i:9-10:p:1434-1441
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2012.04316.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2012.04316.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2012.04316.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:22:y:2013:i:9-10:p:1434-1441. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2702 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.