The Northern Mental Health Nursing Qualitative Research Forum meets three times a year to connect Mental Health Nurse researcher interested in, and conducting, qualitative research, methodologies and innovations. If you wish to be added to the mailing list, please contact KMWright1@uclan.ac.uk.
The following session was recorded at their second event on Thursday 13 October 2022. With thanks to Prof Karen Wright and Dr James Turner for organising the event and the invitation to support with recording the sessions.
Title: Wholetruth, Untruths and Lies: an ethnographic study of communicative interaction between professional care givers and people with dementia.
Author: Jane Murray
Abstract: It is the first-time ethnography has been used as a methodology to explore lie telling by professionals in a clinical area. It brought new and significant knowledge to the area and is challenging previously held beliefs about lie telling. One of the main outputs has been a Taxonomy of Lies and The Lie ARM (Affective Reflective Model). I would like to explore their use in a range of practice settings, and then embed them into regular reflective practice, in order to improve the quality of life for people with dementia.
I intend to challenge the Nursing Midwifery Council and the General Medical Council to adjust their Codes of Conduct to better support practitioners in practice in relation to telling lies to people with advanced dementia. It is important to highlight that truth telling should always be the starting point of any interaction, but in people with advanced dementia (particularly time shifted reality) lie telling may be kinder and more person centred in terms of meeting their needs. In many cases to repeatedly tell the truth may in fact represent maleficence, and that telling a lie, or entering their reality and accepting their truth, actually upholds the concept of beneficence.
With further research around the Taxonomy of Lies and The Lie ARM, I hope to demonstrate that lie telling can be therapeutic or positive and that reflection on and in practice is a way of helping practitioners to develop their communication around lie telling.
