Back to Basics: Using Foundational Nursing Principles To Save Our Population from Drowning in the Sea of Media (mis)Information

With an overwhelming plethora of information available online, nurses can rely on the foundational principles of the nursing profession to ensure patients are given trustworthy, complete, and unbiased information to make their healthcare decisions.

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Back to Basics: Using Foundational Nursing Principles To Save Our Population from Drowning in the Sea of Media (mis)Information

As media expands and advances, the relationship between digital media and healthcare grows increasingly tumultuous, to say the least.

In the world today, it seems easier to acquire quick, diluted, and opinion-laden information while the science-backed, researched data requires a bit more work to seek out. Therefore, those online settle for what's fast and readily available.

The seas of truthful, comprehensive information have been muddied by the vastness of half-truths and misinformation.

Fundamentals

So how do we, as nurses and healthcare professionals, step up and serve our communities, families, and those around us with unbiased information?

The answer to this question is not a new philosophy, but actually the opposite.

We go back to basics, remember our foundational teachings, and do what we do best.

We educate and inform based on evidence-based data from scientific inquiry, peer-reviewed journals, and trusted sources.

This principle has not changed. Since nursing school, we have been taught the importance of evidence-based practice and using that information to deliver education to our patients and colleagues.

Social and digital media may have changed the way those around us receive their information, but it should not change the way nurses receive their information because nurses continue to stand firm on the fundamentals of ethical nursing practice, scientific inquiry, research, and delivering unbiased education.

Nursing practice is built upon these key baseline values for promoting ethical information sharing and decision-making.   

  • Veracity— honesty and integrity are well-known underpinnings in nursing practice, affording nursing the most trusted profession accolade for decades1. Nurses and healthcare professionals have the duty to provide truthful and complete information to our populations even when the information may be unfavorable.
  • Patient autonomy— patients have the right to know about all of their treatment options and make the decisions they deem best for themselves and their families.
  • Benevolence— the commitment to helping patients identify the best possible healthcare decisions for themselves.

Informed Decision-Making

While media and politics may be accused of giving information to sway a population to make one decision or another, nurses are trained on and believe in the principle of informed decision-making.

Informed decision-making doesn't mean we deliver the fragments of information that will make a patient or population do what you think they should do. It also doesn't mean we omit pieces of data in order to paint a picture in favor of one choice or the other.

Informed decision-making is the ethical belief that the population has a right to receive all the information they need to make an informed, educated decision.

Informed decision-making looks like this. Let's say complete, unbiased information is like a whole meal. Digital and social media many times, will give the appetizer or just portions of the meal, while informed decision-making means you open up the buffet doors, allow the people to weigh all their options (the favorable, unfavorable, benefits, risks, and possible outcomes of each decision), then empower them to chose what is best without coercion or judgment.

Social Media and Healthcare

When it comes to social media, in particular, one should seriously caution the advice floating on these platforms. While we may find some valuable, accurate information from credible sources on social media, it, unfortunately, has been gravely polluted with opinion, conspiracy theories, and half-truths disguised as trustworthy and accurate data.

This has influenced healthcare because nurses and healthcare professionals have to work harder to ensure the correct, complete information is given to our patients and populations. Gone are the days when patients come into the healthcare setting with a fresh, untouched thinking canvas upon which the healthcare professional can lay a solid foundation of accurate, complete, evidence-based information.

Now, patients are coming (and calling) in with the myths, misconceptions, and opinion-driven "information" they've absorbed from social and digital media, leaving healthcare professionals to clean it up as best as possible, sanitize the area with truthful, evidence-based information, and hope the infection of fabricated knowledge hasn't already caused irreversible damage.

We would be remiss not to acknowledge, however, that digital media is important because we need our communities to be aptly and unbiasedly informed. Media has the advantage of a wide reach, while healthcare professionals may only be able to reach as far as their patients, healthcare system, or their immediate communities.

Seemingly, the vie to break the news and be the first to tell a story or debut new information causes media outlets to publicize facts preliminary, resulting in incomplete information. The goals of healthcare professionals are vastly different as we advocate for the well-being and safety of the public, ensuring our patients receive accurate care and information for informed decision-making.  

Additionally, even in instances when the media gets it right, some individuals no longer trust the information that media and news outlets provide. Whether it's due to the media's affiliations in politics, or a history of spreading misinformation, some may consider the media's reputation already tainted, while nursing continues to grow as the most trusted profession. The nursing profession has earned that title by upholding a fundamental nursing belief, and that is the empowerment and autonomy of our populations and patients with the information they need to make their decisions.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

The beneficial point of online health information is that there is so much ... The unfortunate point about online health information is, also, that there is so much. We live in a fast world that wants fast information, bullet points, and quick rundowns. The majority of our population will not seek out a scholarly article on a subject, let alone read it in its entirety. Additionally, most of our non-healthcare professional population may not comprehend the depth of detail some of these great resources provide. The issue is that opinion and misinformation are easily made accessible on the internet. Even the abundance of correct information is like poster overload. You know, when you look at a wall and see one poster, you're likely to read it. But if you look at a wall with 100 posters sprawled across it, you're likely to read none of them, as it is an overwhelming sea of information.

Progressing Forward

I would not consider digital media to have "killed" common sense, rather, due to the promotion of incorrect or incomplete information (both in professional and social media), it has affected the trust the public has in healthcare and health information. What is considered common sense to healthcare professionals may be difficult for the public to comprehend; that's why we need nurses and other healthcare professionals.

Healthcare professionals are to be the conduit through which complex scientific data is delivered in a layman's manner that does not lose its original purpose and meaning.

As nurses, we are equipped to step up and combat the challenges we currently face. It's going to be up to local healthcare professionals across the country to protect their populations (their patients) and make access to accurate, trustworthy information a priority. There's no need to attempt to develop a profoundly philosophical, new way to achieve this. Rather, nurses continue to rely on the foundational principles of patient autonomy, benevolence, and veracity to protect the decision-making capacity of those we serve as digital media continues to progress.

Your Turn:

What are some of the nursing foundations you think can be used to combat the misinformation in digital media today?

How can nurses use social media to their advantage to help inform our patients and populations?

References/Resources

1Military Brass, Judges Among Professions at New Image Lows

 

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Armesse Cheney

About Armesse Cheney, MSN, RN

Armesse Cheney, MSN, RN-BC, NPD-BC has been a registered nurse in sunny California since 2011. Her years of experience have been in Med-Surg/Telemetry, Nursing Leadership, and Nursing Education. Armesse has also served as Adjunct faculty at local community colleges and universities. When she's not nursing, she enjoys reading, writing, blogging, and spending time with her husband and 2 children.

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

“Informed decision making” is what stuck out to me. The problem that I see now is that social media sites are (and have been) censoring information r/t Covid that they deemed misinformed which has led to patients not receiving the full “buffet”, thus not having full autonomy in their decision making. Add to this the partisan news sites on both sides and it is no wonder people don’t know who to trust. Social media has become so toxic I rarely use it. Although I do try to point people to reputable medical sites for information and those who regularly use social media could do the same.

Good, well written article!!

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Specializes in ER.

Social media sites are best for sharing vacation photos and catching up with old friends. Meaningful discussions are rare. 

The government and large corporations have taken the internet firmly under their control, along withwhat information is available. The Golden Age of the internet was the late 90s and early 2000s,  when there was a lot of freedom of exchange and variety  of information available. That is a thing of the past.

Now the internet is a great way to monitor citizens and maintain thought and information control. 

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

Generally speaking, people are going to believe what they want to believe which gives them a sense of comfort, security, and power.

As nurses, we can only be the message carriers and allow the proverbial horse to drink the water or not.

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).

This is great advice if you are dealing with persons capable of critical thinking. Just look at some of the misinformation some nurses on this site are endorsing. Yes trained nurses are proliferating misinformation.

One really learns to stop trying to explain something when you realize the person being addressed can only understand from their level of comprehension.

Hppy

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Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
On 9/8/2022 at 9:04 AM, hppygr8ful said:

This is great advice if you are dealing with persons capable of critical thinking. Just look at some of the misinformation some nurses on this site are endorsing. Yes trained nurses are proliferating misinformation.

One really learns to stop trying to explain something when you realize the person being addressed can only understand from their level of comprehension.

Hppy

When a person KNOWS he is right (even when he is misinformed) he can't even hear what we say. It goes in one ear and out the other because he knows we must be wrong when we disagree with him.

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Specializes in Community Health, Care Coordination and Geriatrics.

Great article! If only we all went back to those basics! It makes so much sense.

My friend is an epidemiologist for our local Public Health with her PhD and was challenged all the time during the pandemic because others had the “real” information ?

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Specializes in Nursing Education/ Med-Surg/Telemetry.

@Daisy4RN yes! I know all too well. and the poor patients just fall victim to the convincing tactics of these sources. 

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Specializes in Nursing Education/ Med-Surg/Telemetry.
On 9/9/2022 at 4:56 PM, Kitiger said:

When a person KNOWS he is right (even when he is misinformed) he can't even hear what we say. It goes in one ear and out the other because he knows we must be wrong when we disagree with him.

@Kitiger so very true!! that's what I meant when I mentioned "Now, patients are coming (and calling) in with the myths, misconceptions, and opinion-driven “information” they’ve absorbed from social and digital media, leaving healthcare professionals to clean it up as best as possible, sanitize the area with truthful, evidence-based information, and hope the infection of fabricated knowledge hasn’t already caused irreversible damage.".

Once they know they are right, it's hard to crack that barrier. 

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