Trust, power, and vulnerability: a discourse on helping in nursing.

Full Abstract

This article uses philosophical inquiry to present the relationship between the helping role in nursing and the concept of trust essential to it. It characterizes helping as the moral center of the nurse-patient relationship and discusses how patients' expectations of help and caring create obligations of trustworthiness on the part of the nurse. It uses literature from various disciplines to examine different theoretical accounts of trust, each presenting important features of trust relationships that apply to health care professionals, patients, and families. Exploring the concept of trust, and the key leverage points that elicit it, develops a thesis that nurses can improve their understanding of the principal attributes and the conditions that foster or impede trust. The article concludes that trust is the core moral ingredient of helping relationships. Trust as a moral value is even more basic than duties of beneficence, respect, veracity, and autonomy. Trust is the confident expectation that others can be relied upon to act with good will and to secure what is best for the person seeking help.

Author information

Author/s: Carter, Michele A (MA);

Affiliation: Institute for the Medical Humanities, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, UTMB Ethics Consultation Services, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-1311, USA. mcarter(-atsign-)utmb.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Review

Journal: The Nursing clinics of North America (Nurs Clin North Am), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Dec; vol 44 (issue 4) : pp 393-405

Dates: Created 2009/10/23; Completed 2009/11/06;

PMID: 19850176, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article
(including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.