Ethical Considerations in Nursing Care for Adolescent Patients

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Introduction
The case study is based upon Taylah who had visited the clinic, requesting for
contraception. Taylah is diabetic and his body image clearly depicts her risk taking behavior
related to sexual activity, partying and binge drinking. Although Taylah is only 14 years old, but
she looks older than her age, which probably leads to expectations from others, including the
older boys. Taylah has become sexually active recently and have had sexual intercourse with two
random boys at the parties during binge drinking.
The seriousness of the problem lies in the fact that Taylah is only 14v years old and her
risk taking activities should not only hamper her academic career in the future, but might bring
about several health care complications. Many literary sources have indicated towards the fact
that binge drinking among the adolescent can be related to alcohol related poisoning, black outs
and injury, involvement in the car crashes and the fatalities, alcohol related sexual and physical
assaults and increased risk of sexually transmitted disease or problems at the work or schools.
Furthermore, indiscriminate sexual activity at this age increases the chance of unwanted
pregnancy or the transmission of sexually transmitted disease (Wilkinson et al., 2018). Use of
oral contraceptive at a young age again increases the risk of menstrual cycle irregularities,
weight gain, depression, headache, bloating and mood swings. Some of the research papers has
also claimed that it exposes women to breast cancer (Wilkinson et al., 2018).
Medroxyprogesterone acetate is also associated with a delayed return to fertility and possibly a
reversible osteopenia (Wilkinson et al., 2018). These factors certainly poses health risk for
Taylah. Furthermore, since Taylah is just 14 years old, an ethical issue might arise as whether
Taylah’s parents should be involved in this.

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Body
Bioethical principle
The reports spans round four ethical principles of Beauchamp and Childress (2008),
that includes principles of autonomy, non-maleficence, principles of beneficence and principles
of justice. It is evident from the case study that Taylah had come to the clinic for consulting
about the use of the contraceptives, hence apart from discussing about the method of
contraception, it is also the duty of the nurses to inform the girl about the ill effects of
contraception (Butts & Rich, 2019).
The third ethical principle can be discussed in this context- the principle of non-maleficence,
which means non –harming or inflicting minimal harm to the patient to reach a beneficial
outcome (Winner et al., 2018). Hence, while suggesting the patient about contraception it is also
necessary to take under consideration, the age of the patient.
Beneficence is again an ethical principal that addresses the concept that the action of the
nurses is to do good to promote good to the patient (Almeida, Lins & Rocha, 2015). Act of
beneficence means that even if the nurses discuss the contraception methods with her, focus
should be given that only those medicines should be prescribed will cause less adverse effects.
As an act of beneficence , it also necessary that the nurses inform patient about the adverse effect
of using contraceptive pills and the reckless life that Taylah had been facing with. Being a
responsible nurse, it is necessary to screen the presence of any chronic disease before the
advising the patient with any intervention. There are several things that needs to be checked
before administration of the injection. Taylah should be educated that oral contraceptive pills
might prevent pregnancy to some extent, but it certainly does not save the patient from the