Essay On Trust In Nursing

Nurses usually care for individuals who are most vulnerable when illness and other conditions do not allow them to be autonomous or self-regulative. Trust is a vital value in nurse-patient relationships. Trust is conceived as an internal good of nursing practice and as a normative ethical concept. Carter (2009) suggested that trust is even more fundamental than duties of beneficence, veracity and non-maleficence because without trust, nobody would have a reason to take on these duties in the first place. Trust as an inter-personal and essential element of all nurse-patient relationships was the clearest result in a literature review of trust and trustworthiness.
Nurses are highly trusted by patients. As trust grows, patients will begin to believe that the nurses are …show more content…
This pre-existing trust is often related to familiarity and previous experiences with the hospital and health-care providers. They have an initial trust in nurses due to their education. However, there are a few conditions that are considered to be essential for the development of trust between the nurse and patient. These conditions include the availability of the nurse, feeling physically and emotionally safe and feeling valued as an individual. Feeling safe was related to basic needs such as having someone to rely on. For patients, this someone is the nurse. Thompson et al., reported that the development of trust requires an evaluation of care, including whether parent’s and children’s needs are met. Continuity of service is also a precondition for the development of trust in a nurse patient relationship. Getting to know a patient as a person first rather than a patient is one of the main preconditions for the development of trust. The nurse and patient must feel comfortable with one another and the nurse should act as the patient’s advocate. The personality and communication skills are very important when being the patient’s