Silence or disclosure? Professional confidentiality and nursing

Abstract

Professional confidentiality is a fundamental value for ethics and deontology applied to nursing as well as other professions in health care. Nurses should never reveal what they find out while carrying out their profession and this silence is based on the patient's right to privacy. The prohibition of the disclosure of the professional secret, not to be confused with the communication of information to other medical staff, is contained both in the Professional Deontology Code and in the laws of the Western countries. However, there are some situations, amongst which AIDS, in which the obligation of secrecy strongly contrasts with the safeguarding of the common wellbeing. One wonders whether the individual right to privacy can be violated by the fear of harm - in this case the spreading of a presently incurable disease - to an innocent person.