Ethics of care in public health educative actions: a literature review

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses ethical aspects of care within the context of public health educative actions by highlighting the practice of nursing professionals from reflections and inquiries regarding the ethical dimension of care. The ethical relations of care imply human relationships and, consequently, complex relations. Therefore, it is necessary that each subject be respected and welcome according to his/her needs what requires the construction of ties, between the professional and the patient, regulated by ethics and respect. Finally, it is pointed out that ethics in nursing pervades a holistic view of the human being what allows the nurse to recognize his/her competences and responsibilities with the patients. It is up to these professionals to take over their commitment as health educators within this process of social reconstruction by struggling for the fulfillment of public health policies and by overcoming the assistance practice and by rescuing the quality in the attendance of the population by means of competent, responsible and humanized nursing care.