ArticleInternational nursing review2026
Nurses' Ethical Reasoning About Digital Ethical Risks: A Vignette-Elicited Qualitative Study.
Article in International nursing review, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimThis qualitative study aimed to explore how nurses reason ethically about potential digital ethical risks arising from the routine use of digital systems in clinical practice and the strategies they propose to address these risks in response to vignette-based scenarios.
backgroundDigital systems shape nursing documentation, monitoring, communication, education, and decision-making. Although they support care, digital ethical risks may arise when digital outputs are accepted without clinical verification, patients are not adequately informed, or data protection is weak.
designA vignette-elicited qualitative design was used.
methodsThe study was conducted in September 2025 with 16 nurses working in three public hospitals in Central Anatolia, Türkiye. Data were generated through face-to-face interviews using seven vignette-based scenarios and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis.
resultsThree main themes were generated through the analysis of nurses' ethical reasoning in response to the vignette-based scenarios: (i) nurses' purposes for using digital systems, (ii) digital ethical risks in nursing, and (iii) strategies to prevent digital ethical risks. The findings within Themes 2 and 3 were organized into four subthemes-nonmaleficence and beneficence, autonomy and respect for persons, justice and equity, privacy and confidentiality-and further structured across three researcher-developed categories: nurse, digital system, and organization.
conclusionsParticipants' interpretations of the vignette-based scenarios highlighted potential digital ethical risks that may require nurses to combine clinical judgment with ethical reasoning when using digital systems. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Participants' responses may inform digital ethics education by highlighting the importance of verifying digital data through bedside assessment, questioning potentially unsafe digital outputs, protecting confidentiality, obtaining meaningful consent, and recognizing potential risks in documentation, alarms, communication, and data sharing. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICY: Participant-identified priorities may inform institutional consideration of protocols for documentation, alarm management, mobile communication, image sharing, access control, patient information, accessibility, and accountability in digital nursing care.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.