Truth-telling, decision-making, and ethics among cancer patients in nursing practice in China:

Background:Truth-telling toward terminally ill patients is a challenging ethical issue in healthcare practice. However, there are no existing ethical guidelines or frameworks provided for Chinese nurses in relation to decision-making on truth-telling of terminal illness and the role of nurses thus is not explicit when encountering this issue.Objectives:The intention of this paper is to provide ethical guidelines or strategies with regards to decision-making on truth-telling of terminal illness for Chinese nurses.Methods:This paper initially present a case scenario and then critically discuss the ethical issue in association with ethical principles and philosophical theories. Instead of focusing on attitudes toward truth disclosure, it aims to provide strategies regarding this issue for nurses. It highlights and discusses some of the relevant ethical assumptions around the perceived role of nurses in healthcare settings by focusing on nursing ethical virtues, nursing codes of ethics, and philosophical pers...