Author(s)

Miwa Yamamoto

Department of Nursing, Kyoto Koka Women’s University, Kyoto, Japan.

Purpose: This study sought to clarify the relationship between a nurse’s exposure to elderly relatives and their perspective in using restraints on the elderly in health care situations. Methods: We approached nursing staff supervisors at 17 general hospital wards and explained the objectives of the study. Supervisors at 14 hospitals agreed to participate, giving us a sampling pool of 1929 nurses. We used a chi square test to compare nurses who had spent time with elderly relatives and those who had not on several variables related to using restraints on elderly patients. Results and Conclusion: This study found that nurses who live with elderly family members were significantly more likely to believe that restraints cause diseases (including chronic diseases) based on a chi square test (p < 0.05). Therefore it would be important that essential was the experiences of individuals with elderly family members when making programs of decreasing nurse’s dilemma to restraining the elderly.

Ethical Dilemmas; Restraints; Female Nurses; Care for Their Relatives

Yamamoto, M. (2012) The effects of ethical dilemmas regarding the use of physical restraints in eldercare on female nurses who care for their relatives in Japan. Open Journal of Nursing, 2, 34-35. doi: 10.4236/ojn.2012.22006.