Ethical and Legal Principles Case Study 2022

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In the provided case study, the name of the patient was Jessica who is 15 years old. She
was admitted to Emergency care as she got fainted during an event in the School. To determine
the actual issue because of which Jessica fainted in the School, nurse Sam asked several
questions to the patient. It has been observed that the patient is minor and sexually active. She
confides to the nurse that she suspects pregnancy which she wanted to hide from everyone,
especially from her mother. The main ethical issue for nurse Sam was to maintain the privacy
and confidentiality of the patient. It has been observed in many cases of adolescent patients that
they avoid further treatment because of privacy issue. There are chances of their return to
healthcare treatment or proceedings when they know the confidentiality will be maintained and
respected. According to ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses Standard, nurses should maintain the
confidentiality of the patients and should not discuss their problem with anyone else if they do
not want to discuss with anyone else, even with their parents (Icn.ch, 2012). However, in the
case of adolescent patients, nurses may advise them to disclose their health issue to their parents
(Diekema, 2019).
Ethical and Legal Principles:
Based on the standards of the ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses, one of the primary
responsibilities of nurses is to provide care to the patients. While providing care to the patients,
nurses should take care of a few things like the rights, beliefs, values, and customs of the patients
must be respected and cared. They must show patients certain professional values like
maintaining patients’ integrity and trust. They should hold confidential information of the
patients and should not share it with any other person without patients’ consent. In this case
study, as the patient is a fifteen-year-old student. This implies that she is a teenager who can take

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her decisions. Thus, if she doesn’t want to share her medical information with her mother. The
nurse must not share it with her mother without her consent.
According to some studies, adolescents fall under a different situation as they are not
considered as full-fledged adults nor a kid. That means they are not legally considered as adults.
Therefore, to receive their autonomy for medical treatment proceedings, it is important to
consider their capability of taking decisions. Hence, in some countries, they are not allowed to
take certain decisions about their medical treatments. However, in some countries, they are
allowed to make their own decisions. Legally, the problem arises when the health issues become
a threat to their life and they do not want to disclose their health issues with their parents. In the
case of minors, in such situations, it is important to disclose the condition to the parents to cope
with the health issue. However, at this point, most of the adolescents refuse to take treatment to
communicate with the parents (Parsapoor et al., 2014).
Based on several studies, it has been concluded that theoretically, a fifteen-year-old
adolescent girl can decide about their reproductive health treatment. But if the potential treatment
can harm on the health of the adolescent girl, it is important to assure its competence and
conception. The nurse should provide certain aspects of the treatment so that the patient can
explore her treatment options. As the patient in the provided case study is mentally stable and
mature enough to make decisions about her treatment, legally, she is considered as competent to
decide whom to tell about her condition (Burgart et al., 2017).
Some studies suggest that the preferences of adolescents on medical treatment should be
considered within some limitations depending upon their level of maturity and severity of the
illness. The nurses should provide appropriate referrals to the patients so that patients can make

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proper choices regarding their health condition (ETHICAL ISSUES IN OBSTETRICS AND
GYNECOLOGY, 2012).
The health of adolescents is affected by many types of social and biological factors. At
this point, risky behaviour can affect the whole life of adolescents. There are many teenagers
who start sexual activities in adolescence and experience adverse reproductive and sexual health
results (Kim and White, 2017). This is the case with Jessica who is the patient in the given case
study. She started sexual activity at an early age and hence, she was scared of being pregnant at
such an early age. The main ethical issue which the nurse must address is to respect the privacy
and confidentiality of the patient. There are two options that the nurse can apply in addressing
the ethical issue in this case study. Based on the first option, she can explain the alternatives to
the patient and suggest her to tell everything to her mother as her mother can take better
decisions for her life. However, nurse Sam cannot force her to do so. However, lying to the
parent of an adolescent girl is not ethical. Therefore, the nurse can remind her mother that now
the most important thing is the well-being of Jessica and nothing else. That’s why her mother
should only concern about her good health. In this case study, the nurse should perform
everything in order to maintain Jessica’s confidentiality, but lying to the patient is never
recommended (Santos, 2012).
The second option for nurse Sam in this case study is to tell Jessica’s mother about her
condition without the permission of Jessica. This can be done by observing potential harms that
could affect Jessica’s health in the future. According to parental rights, Jessica is still a minor
and her mother has all the rights to know about her health condition. However, it is not
recommendable to disclose any information without the consent of Jessica. But in the case of
adolescent individuals, nurses can share the information with the parents when they observe