J Korean Acad Fundam Nurs.  2011 Aug;18(3):411-420.

Differences in Awareness and Ethical Attitudes about Do-Not- Resuscitate among Emergency Departments' Team

• Park HY
• Sung MH

Abstract

PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to exam differences in awareness and ethical attitudes associated with Do-Not- Resuscitate (DNR) among emergency department's team. METHOD: The participants in this study were 402 emergency department's team working in the 41 hospitals. The data was collected by using "awareness measuring tool" by Kang (2003) and "ethical attitudes measuring tool" by Ko (2004) from May 1 to September 15, 2009. Collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient using SPSS WIN 14.0 program.
RESULTS
74.4% of subjects was responded that they had never been educated about DNR, but 73.9% of subjects was responded that they had experienced DNR in the emergency room. The majority of subjects responded that the patients and their families should make a decision about the DNR. There was a difference in an appropriate time for explanation of DNR among emergency department's team. There was a difference in ethical attitudes associated with Do-Not- Resuscitate among emergency department's team.
CONCLUSION
For a professional and systematic approach to the problem, DNR guideline sufficient to elicit a social consensus is needed.

Keyword

Emergency service; Awareness; Ethics

MeSH Terms

Consensus
Emergencies
Humans