RESEARCH ABSTRACT

Patients autonomy and privacy in nursing

interventions
Key words: autonomy; informed consent; nursing ethics; privacy

Purpose: The purpose of this three-year (19982001) project is to describe and

analyse patient autonomy and privacy as it applies to nursing interventions in
European hospital organizations. The goal is to enhance the ethical knowledge
base of nursing professionals in order to maintain a certain standard of nursing
and also to improve the quality of nursing and health care in Europe. The project is co-ordinated by the University of Turku Department of Nursing, and it will
be conducted in Finland, Germany, Greece, Spain and the UK.
Methods: The project is divided into two phases. The first involves an extensive
literature review on the concepts of autonomy, privacy and informed consent in
each of the five countries. In the second phase, empirical data collection will take
place in each of the participating countries. Interventions that will be measured
are: taking care of patients nutritional needs, elimination, medication and bodily
hygiene.
The data will be collected in all participating countries from two sample
groups: patients and nurses. The patient sample comprises three subsamples:
mothers staying on postnatal wards (n = 300/country), surgical patients
(n = 300/country) and older patients on hospital wards (n = 100/country). The
nurse data will be collected on the corresponding wards at university and general hospitals (n = 300/unit and per country). The results of the project will be
available at the beginning of the year 2001.
Results: The results will yield basic knowledge on how to improve the quality of
care. They will provide a more solid basis for ethical decision making, pave the
way to more consistent nursing practices in European countries, and support and
strengthen collaboration in the nursing discipline and between researchers working in different European countries. The results will establish a basis for the development of training programmes in nursing education and on-the-job training, and
benefit work to develop doctoral programmes. The project will also support university nursing education in Europe.
Funding: European Commission, BIOMED 2 programme.

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Research abstract

Helena Leino-Kilpi (Scientist in Charge, Finland); Maritta Vlimki (Researcher,

Finland); Theo Dassen (Germany), Maria Gasull (Spain), Chryssoula Lemonidou
(Greece), Anne P Scott (UK) (international partners); Marianne Arndt (Consultant, UK).
Address for correspondence: Professor Helena Leino-Kilpi, Department of
Nursing, University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland. Telephone: +358 2 333 8409;
Fax: +358 2 333 8400; E-mail: heleiki@utu.fi

Nursing Ethics 1999 6 (4)