Ethical sensitivity and perceptiveness in palliative home care through co-creation

Background: In research on co-creation in nursing, a caring manner can be used to create opportunities whereby the patient’s quality of life can be increased in palliative home care. This can be described as an ethical cornerstone and the goal of palliative care. To promote quality of life, nurses must be sensitive to patients’ and their relatives’ needs in care encounters. Co-creation can be defined as the joint creation of vital goals for patients through the process of shared knowledge between nurses, patients and their relatives.Aim: The aim of this study was to explore nurses’ experiences of caring encounters and co-creation in palliative home care from an ethical perspective.Research design, participants, and research context: A hermeneutical approach was used. The material consisted of texts from interviews with 12 nurses in a home care context. The method was inspired by thematic analysis.Ethical considerations: Informed consent was sought from the participants regarding study participation and the storage and handling of data for research purposes.Findings: An overall theme, a main theme and four sub-themes emerged. Through ethical sensitivity and perceptivity, nurses can balance their actions in the moment and change their nursing care actions according to the patient’s wishes through co-creation in encounters. Here the time is crucial, as the time needed is unique to each patient.Discussion: The themes together can be considered prerequisites for good palliative home care. If nurses fail to be sensitive and perceptive in encounters with dying patients, good palliative home care cannot be achieved. Ethical sensitivity and perceptiveness can also be considered a part of nurses’ ethical competence.Conclusion: Patients’ dignity can be preserved through ethical sensitivity and perceptiveness, which is fundamental for good palliative care. Co-creation from patients’ perspectives should be the focus of future research.