Significance of Nursing Professional Code of Conduct in Patient Care

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1NURSING
One of the important aspects of healthcare is proper application of the nursing
professionals’ standards and nursing code of conduct (Nursing and Midwifery Board of
Australia [NMBA] 2013). The following essay will elaborate the significance of the nursing
professional code of conduct while delivering care to the patient. In doing this, the essay will
take help of the case study of an Aboriginal women named Raelene Ward. Raelene Ward is
40 years old having three children and the case study is elaborated in the reflective phrase as
she is giving interview to Natasha Reedy. The paper will discuss theories that are associated
with the nursing based person-centred care, family centred care plan and nursing code of
ethical conduct. The paper will also focus on the National Safety and Quality Health Service
Standards (NSQHSS) and Erikson psychosocial theory of needs. At the end, the essay will
state few examples of the effective and in-effective care as elaborated in through the case
study along with the significance of “partnering with the consumers”.
The nursing professional standards that can be easily highlighted in the case study is
process of informed-decision making. According to the NMBA Standards (2013), a nurse
must incorporate the patients in the care plan by the process of informed decision making.
This helps to up-held the nursing ethics of autonomy. However, from the interview of
Raelene, it is clear that upon her diagnosis with gestational diabetes (GD) after the delivery of
the third baby, the endocrinologist in antenatal care prescribed her with the insulin therapy.
During that time she has no knowledge about the role of insulin therapy or why the insulin
injection was given to her suddenly. Thus it can be said that she received no support from the
nurses like education of the patients in order to take part in the informed decision making.
Buhse, Kuniss, Liethmann, Müller, Lehmann and Mühlhauser (2018) stated that education of
the patient about the disease prognosis and the therapy planning helps to increase the
patients’ support in the care plan and thus helping to improve the outcome of care. According
to the Erickson’s psychosocial theory of need, the people who are aged between 18 to 40

2NURSING
years, the main needs are intimacy and isolation (Knight, 2017). Social and community level
participation or interacting with the family members promotes intimacy. This intimacy helps
to improve the mental well-being and this in turn facilitated the physical well-being (Kuiper,
Kirsh & Maiolino, 2016). Raelene reported that she is single working mother with no
financial and mental support coming from her husband. Sudden demise of her sister further
created a psychological void in her life and thus increasing social isolation. This is the reason
why she passed on to depression. However, during the process of care, she received no
mental health support from the nursing professionals. Counselling from the mental health
nurses for the older adults might help to avoid such complications (Mehta, Lo, Garshasb &
Jeffrey, 2017). Raelene was unable to manager her own medications and this is against her
aboriginal culture as they are well-equipped with the self-management and self-coping skills.
Proper mental health counselling and awareness about diabetes might help to increase her
self-coping skills.
The care-plan used for Raelene was in-effective as it did not followed the person-
centred care plan. When Raelene was developed gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) no
prior consent was taken from her for injecting insulin in order to manage her blood glucose
level. Brown et al. (2017) stated that form the treatment of the gestational diabetes, the
injection of the fast acting insulin through subcutaneous injection is always not
comprehensive and might incur side effects. Depending on the physiological health condition
of the women in pre-natal care along with the blood glucose level, the selection of the therapy
must be done. Brown, Grzeskowiak, Williamson, Downie and Crowther (2017) state that the
proper analysis of the insulin management for GD is crucial for fostering effective care to
women in the pre-natal care. Proper implementation of the person-centred care approach
based on the clinical needs of the patient helps to chances of un-wanted complications.