Kristen Jones-Bonofiglio

Lakehead University Thunder Bay Campus · Department of Health Sciences

INTRODUCTION This article presents demographic and care factors related to persons who are substance-involved and require inpatient administration of intravenous antibiotics. PURPOSE This study was conducted to explore healthcare responses to support substance-involved inpatients, through exploration of documented client outcomes, healthcare provi...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence-based resources have been sought to support decision-making and strategically inform hospitals’ policies, procedures, and practices. While greatly emphasizing protection, most guiding documents have neglected to support and protect the psychosocial needs of frontline health care workers and patients and their...

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights refers to the importance of cultural diversity and pluralism in ethical discourse and care of humanity. The aim of this meta-narrative review is to identify indigenous ethical values pertaining to the Ojibway (Canada), Xhosa (So...

It is now evident that a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has developed. The unfortunate reality is that those in rural areas may be impacted the hardest. Ethical decision making may look the same for rural areas as urban areas, but this is far from accurate. This practice article is focused on why the challenges are different and how rural hos...

Context: Nurses are often hesitant to talk about ethical issues in their practice for many unique and valid reasons. What if the burden of risk was lifted upon retirement, even if just slightly? The purpose of this study was to explore retired nurses’ reflections on their experiences of ethical issues and decision making in various nursing practice...

Nursing is an inherently moral endeavour. As such, the ability to be morally attuned to others situates nurses to be at increased risk for moral injury. This ties closely with experiences of moral distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout, but is something more. Nurses may enter the profession already wounded and seek to heal themselves through ser...

One way to explore a complex concept is to consider it as layered and interactional and seek to understand it from a variety of perspectives. Here, I employ a socio-ecological model to consider the nested nature of various aspects of this concept. Moral distress is a phenomenon with potentially dynamic effects from micro-level concerns for health c...

Since the term moral distress was first noted almost four decades ago, moral distress experiences have been most thoroughly explored in various acute care settings. The concept of futile or non-beneficial treatments that contribute to unnecessary suffering, especially during palliative and end-of-life care have been found to be a key source of mora...

The concept of moral distress was first developed in the mid 1980s by American philosopher Andrew Jameton. Since then, moral distress has been studied in many health care settings and among various disciplines. Some say that it has been studied enough and therefore does not require further inquiry or attention. However, as contemporary health care...

Moral confidence comes from a personal moral compass that can be trusted to help one navigate the, sometimes treacherous, ethical terrain of complex issues in contemporary health care practice. The ability to be guided by a sense of authentic meaning and purpose contributes to work satisfaction, professional fulfillment, and personal well-being. Ho...

Moral distress; it can break you or build you. It is a complex, dynamic concept with many interconnected layers. However, it always begins with an individual experience. A moment. A sense that what is happening should not be (or what is not happening should be). There is a desire to act differently, either in the moment or upon reflection on that m...

Moral uncertainty should be a reasonable expectation for contemporary health care providers who experience complex ethical issues in their everyday practice. The busy nature of caring work, technological and scientific advancements, and a multitude of competing demands leave little room for deep reflection on the complex moral aspects of patient an...

Moral distress also occurs outside the walls of hospitals, despite persistent beliefs that significant ethical issues must have strict acute care boundaries. However, in community health care settings care providers often have far less control over circumstances and environments. A well-stocked supply cupboard is far from the reach of a visiting nu...

A re-examination of traditional approaches to foundational discourses in health care ethics is duly needed. In contemporary western societies, there is ongoing attention to patient-centred and family-involved care. However, an additional commitment to the needs of carers is missing. Ethics is about who you are, what you do, and who you become as a...

Bioethics, medical ethics, nursing ethics, health care ethics, ethical dilemmas, and moral conflicts. Where is our common understanding of what ethics is and how it is applied in practice? A basic definition is that ethics are the principles that guide behaviour and/or conduct. In health care, ethics principles come from learned theories, professio...

Despite amazing technological advances in health care, patients and families still encounter problems during experiences of illness and disease. These issues can often be mitigated or intensified based on caring actions that are committed or omitted in the context of relationships with health care providers. Examples of unmet needs and expectations...

Faced with a pandemic, doctors around the world are forced to make difficult ethical decisions about clinical, economic and politically charged issues in medicine and healthcare, with little time or resources for support. A decision-making framework is suggested to guide policy and clinical practice to support the needs of healthcare workers, help...

Background Nurses in acute care are frequently involved in ethical decision making and experience a higher prevalence of ethical conflicts and dilemmas. Nurses in underresourced rural acute care settings also are likely to face unique ethical challenges. However, rarely have the particular contexts of these experiences in rural acute care settings...

The purpose of this document is to provide Patient-Oriented Research (POR) Best Practice Recommendations for researchers undertaking research in Northwestern Ontario. The goal is to contribute to building a sustainable, accessible, and equitable process, which can support clients and community stakeholders to be fully engaged in the creation of kno...

This book provides a bridge between the theory to practice gap in contemporary health care ethics. It explores the messiness of everyday ethical issues and validates the potential impacts on health care professionals as wounded healers who regularly experience close proximity to suffering and pain. This book speaks to why ethics matters on a person...

Aim: The “flipped” classroom is an educational strategy gaining popularity for its growing evidence base that suggests it may successfully improve learning outcomes. Also known as reverse instruction, this approach has been typically implemented and studied in in-person post-secondary settings. The utilization of a flipped approach in the healthcar...

Front-line staff in long-term care (LTC) homes often form strong emotional bonds with residents. When residents die, staffs’ grief often goes unattended, and may result in disenfranchised grief. The aim of this article is to develop, implement, and assess the benefits of a peer-led debriefing intervention to help staff manage their grief and provid...

This article examines the development, implementation, and evaluation of a pilot project utilizing high-fidelity simulation (HFS) to improve frontline staff members' confidence and skills to communicate about death and dying in long-term care homes. The target group was unregulated care providers who provide palliative care for residents and their...