The RN’s important role in assuring the patient’s right to autonomy in choosing the healthcare interventions the patient does or does not want.

The RN’s important role in assuring the patient’s right to autonomy in choosing the healthcare interventions the patient does or does not want.

Registered nurses have an important role to play in ensuring that the right to autonomy of the patient is conserved when choosing health care interventions. To promote patient autonomy and to help in the preservation of the rights to autonomy among patients, nurses have to be actively involved in educating patients on various treatment interventions and their benefits and shortcomings. Registered nurses need to realize that patients can only effectively exercise their autonomy from the point of information and not from the point of ignorance (Peicius et al., 2017).

References

Carr, D., & Luth, E. A. (2017). Advance Care Planning: Contemporary Issues and Future Directions. Innovation in Aging, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igx012

Mack, D. S., & Dosa, D. (2019). Improving Advance Care Planning through Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Expansion across the United States: Lessons Learned from State-Based Developments. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 37(1), 19–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049909119851511