GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT
Health promotion is a key element of public health practice, but understanding of the concept is controversial. Health promotion has significant potential to alter people’s lifestyles. It aims to “make the healthy choice, the easy choice, the unhealthy choice and the more difficult choice”, and seeks to influence people to change their health related behaviour. Health promotion is best achieved with the aid of nurses who are responsible to provide their clients/patients with the high-quality care and these provisions are protected by law which is defined in their various codes of practice. They are undoubtedly confronted with various ethical challenges in their professional practice, so they should be familiar with ethical codes of conduct. The codes outline how the nurses should behave ethically as a profession, and how they should decide when encountering barriers which might prevent them from fulfilling their professional obligations since it illustrates moral and professional obligations for prevention of diseases, promoting health in the society, communicating with colleagues, management of health care systems, and research activities. National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) stipulate in their code of conduct that the fundamental responsibility of a nurse is to promote health, to prevent illness, to restore health, and to alleviate suffering. Most important is the respect for life, dignity and right of man. The study recommends that (NANNM) should make sure that ethical codes are being implemented in schools and health sector and make sure that nurses and health practitioners observe ethical standard thereby improving quality health service rendered by the health sectors.
KEYWORDS: Jurisprudence, Ethical Issues, Health Promotion, Nursing.